Latest / 3 Science Fiction Stories by Frank Herbert / Lorelei of the Red Mist (Version 2)-Leigh Douglass Brackett, Ray Bradbury

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Lorelei of the Red Mist (Version 2)-Leigh Douglass Brackett, Ray Bradbury · 3 Science Fiction Stories by Frank Herbert

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Part one of Lorelai of the Red Mist. This is
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: This story was first published in Planet Stories Summer nineteen
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: forty six, Lorelei of the Red Mist, by Lee Douglas
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Brackett and Ray Bradbury. The story recorded by Phil schinever
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: port One. The company Dix were good. They were plenty good.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: Hugh Stark began to think maybe this time he wasn't
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: going to get away with it. His small, stringy body
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: hunched over the control bank, nursing the last ounce of
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: power out of the colman. The hot night air of
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: Venus fled past the ports in tattered vales of indigo.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: Stark wasn't sure where he was anymore. Venus was a
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: frontier planet and still mostly a big X except to
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: the Venusians, who weren't sending out any maps. He did
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: know that he was getting dangerously close to the mountains
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: of White Cloud, the backbone of the planet, towering far
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: into the stratosphere magnetic trap with God knows what beyond.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Maybe even God wasn't sure, but it looked like over
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: the mountains, or out death under the guns of the
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: terot Venus Mines Incorporated Special Police, or back to the
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: lunar cell blocks for life. As an habitual Felon Stark
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: decided he would go over. Whatever happened, He pulled off
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: the biggest lone wolf caper in history, the TV Minds
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Payroll Ship, for close to a million credits. He cuddled
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: the metal strong box between his feet and grinned it
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: would be a long time before anybody equaled that. His
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: mass indicators began to jitter vaguely. A dim purple shadow
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: in the sky ahead the mountains of White Cloud stood
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: like a wall against him. Stark checked the positions of
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: the pursuing ships. There was no way through them. He
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: said flatly, all right, damn you, and sent the colman
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: angling up into the thick blue sky. He had no
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: very clear memories after that. Crazy magnetic vagaries always a
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: hazard on Venus made his instruments useless. He flew by
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: the seat of his pants, and he got over, and
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: the TV men didn't. He was free, with a million
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: credits in his kick. Far below, in the virgin darkness,
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: he saw a sullen crimson smear on the night, as
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: though someone had rubbed it with a bloody thumb. The
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: calmn dipped toward it. The control bank flickered with blue flame,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: the jet timers blue, and then there was just a
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: screaming of air against the falling hull. You Stark sat
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: still and waited. He knew before he opened his eyes,
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: but he was dying. He didn't feel any pain. He
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: didn't feel anything, but he knew just the same part
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: of him was cut loose. He was still there, but
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: not attached any more. He raised his eyelids. There was
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: a ceiling. It was a long way off. It was
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: black stone, veined with smoky reds and embers. He had
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: never seen it before. His head was tilted toward the right.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: He let his gaze move down that way. There were
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: dim tapestries, more of the black stone, and three tall
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: archways giving on to a balcony. Beyond on the balcony
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: was a sky, veiled and clouded with red mist. Under
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: the mist, spreading away from a murky line of cliffs,
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: was an ocean. It wasn't water, and it didn't have
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: any waves on it, but there was nothing else to
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: call it. It burned deep down inside itself, breathing up
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: the red fog. Little angry bursts of flame coiled up
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: under the flat surface, sending circles of sparks flaring out
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: like ripples from a drop stone. He closed his eyes
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: and frowned, and moved his head restively. There was the
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: texture of fur against his skin. Through the cracks of
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: his eyelids, he saw that he lay on a high
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: bed piled with silks and soft tanned pelts. His body
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: was covered. He was rather glad he couldn't see it.
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: It didn't matter, because he wouldn't be using it anymore anyway,
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: and it hadn't been such a hell of a body
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: to begin with. But he was used to it, and
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: he didn't want to see it now the way he
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: knew it would have to look. He looked along over
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: the foot of the bed and saw the woman. She
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: was watching him from a massive carved chair, softened with
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: a single, huge white pelt, like a drift of snow.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: She smiled and let him look. A pulse began to
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: beat under his jaw very feebly. She was tall and
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: sleek and insolently curved. She wore a sort of tabird
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: of pale gray spider silk held to her body by
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: a jeweled girdle, but it was just a nice piece
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: of ornamentation. Her face was narrow, finely cut, secret faintly amused.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Her lips, her eyes, and her flowing silken hair were
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: all the same pale, cool shade of aquamarine. Her skin
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: was white, with no hint of rose. Her shoulders, her forearms,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: the long flat curve of her thighs, the pale green
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: tips of her breasts were dusted with tiny particles that
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: glistened like powdered diamond. She sparkled softly, like a fairy
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: thing against the snowy fur, a creature of foam and
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: moonlight and clear shallow water. Her eyes never left his,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: and they were not human, But he knew that they
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: would have done things to him if he had had
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: any feeling below the neck. He started to speak, He
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: had no stress to move his tongue. The woman leaned forward, and,
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: as though her movement were a signal, four men rose
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: from the tapestry shadows by the wall. They were like her.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: Their eyes were pale and strange, like hers. She said,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: in liquid high Venusian, you're dying in this body, But
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: you will not die. You will sleep now and wake
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: in a strange body, in a strange place. Don't be afraid.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: My mind will be with yours. I'll guide you. Don't
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: be afraid. I can't explain now, there isn't time. But
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: don't be afraid. He drew back his thin lips, baring
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: his teeth in what might have been a smile. If
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: it was, it was wolfish and bitter like his face.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: The woman's eyes began to pour coolness into his skull.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: They were like two little rivers running through the channels
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: of his own eyes, spreading in silver green quiet across
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: the tortured surface of his brain. His brain relaxed, It
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: lay floating on the water, and then the twin streams
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: became one broad flowing stream, and his mind or ego,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: the thing that was intimately himself, vanished along with it.
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: It took him a long long time to regain consciousness.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: He felt as though he'd been shaken until pieces of
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: him were scattered all over inside. Also, he had an
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: instinctive premonition that the minute he woke up, he would
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: be sorry he had He took it easy putting himself together.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: He remembered his name, Hugh Stark. He remembered the mining
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: asteroid where he was born. He remembered the Luna cell
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: blocks where he had once come near dying. There wasn't
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: much to choose between them. He remembered his face decorating
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: half the bulletin boards between Mercury and the belt. He
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: remembered hearing about himself over the telecasts, stuffed to frighten
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: babies with, and he thought of himself committing his first crime,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: a stunted scrawl Ronnie kid of eighteen, swinging a spanner
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: on a grown man who was trying to steal his food.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: The rest of it came fast, then the TV mind's job,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: the getaway that didn't get, the mountains of White Cloud,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: the crash, the woman that did it. His brain leaped shatteringly,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: light feeling a naked sense of reality swept over him.
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: He lay perfectly still, with his eyes shut, and his
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: mind clawed at the picture of the shining woman with
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: sea green hair, and the sound of her voice saying,
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: you will not die, You will wake in a strange body.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: Don't be afraid. He was afraid. His skin prickled and
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: ran cold with it. His stomach nodded with it, his skin,
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: his stomach, and yet somehow they did feel just right,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: like a new coat that hasn't shaped to you. He
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: opened his eyes a cautious crack. He saw a body
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: sprawled on its side in dirty straw. The body belonged
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: to him because he could feel the straw pricking it,
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: and the itch of little things that crawled and ate
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: and crawled again. It was a powerful body, rangy and
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: flat muscled, much bigger than his old one. It had
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: obviously not been starved the first twenty some years of
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: its life. It was stark, naked, weather and violence had
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: written history on it, wheeled white marks on leathery bronze,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: but nothing seemed to be missing. There was black hair
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: on its chest and thighs and forearms, and its hands
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: were lean and sinewy for killing. It was a human
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: body that was something. There were so many other things
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: it might have been that his racial snobbery couldn't call human,
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: Like the nameless, shimmering creature who smiled with strange, pale lips.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: Stark shut his eyes again. He lay the intangible self
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: that was Hugh Stark bellied down in the darkness of
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: the alien shell, quiet in drawn waiting panic, crept up
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  Speaker 1: on its soft black paws. It walked around the crouching
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: ego and sniffed and padded and nuzzled, whining, and then
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: struck with its raking claws. After a while, it went
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: away empty. The lips that were now Stark's lips twitched
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: in a thin, cruel smile. He had done six months
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: once in the lunar solitary crips. If a man could
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: do that and come out sane and on his own
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: two feet, he could stand anything, even this. It came
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: to him then, rather deflatingly, that the woman and her
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: four companions had probably softened the shock by hypnotic suggestion.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: His subconscious understood and accepted the change. It was only
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: his conscious mind that was superficially scared to death. Hugh
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Stork cursed the woman with great thoroughness in seven languages
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: and some odd dialects. He became healthily enraged that any
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: dame should play around with him like that. Then he thought,
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: what the hell, I'm alive, and it looks like I
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: got the best of the trade in. He opened his
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: eyes again, secretly on his new world. He lay at
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: one end of a square stone hall, good sized, with
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: two straight lines of pillars cut from some dark Venusian wood.
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: There were long, crude benches and tables. Fires had been
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: burning on round brick hearth's face. Between the pillars there
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: were embers. Now the smoke climbed up, tarnishing the gold
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: and bronze of shields hung on the walls in pediments,
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: dulling the blades of long swords, the spears, the tapestries
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: and hides and trophies. It was very quiet in the hall.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Somewhere outside of it there was fighting going on, heavy
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: vicious fighting. The noise of it didn't touch the silence,
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: except to make it deeper. There were two men besides
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: Stark in the hall. They were close to him on
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: a low dais. One of them sat in a carved
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: high seat, not moving, his big scarred hands flat on
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: the table in front of him. The other crouched on
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: the floor by his feet. His head was bent forward
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: so that his mop of lent white hair hid his
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: face and the harp between his thighs. He was a
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: little man and a swamp edger from his albino coloring.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: Stark looked back at the man in the chair. The
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: man spoke harshly, Why doesn't she send word? The harp
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: gave out a sudden, bitter cord. That was all Stark
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: hardly noticed. His whole attention was drawn to the speaker.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: His heart began to pound, his muscles coiled and lay ready.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: There was a bitter taste in his mouth. He recognized it.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: It was hate. He had never seen the man before,
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: but his hands twitched with the urge to kill. He
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: was big, nearly seven feet and muscled like a draft horse,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: but his body, naked above a gold bossed leather hilt,
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: was lithe and quick as a greyhound. In spite of
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: his weight. His face was square, strong boned, weathered, and
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: still young. It was a face that had laughed a
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: lot once, and light wine and pretty girls. It had
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: forgotten those things now, except maybe the wine. It was
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: drawn and cruel, with pain, a look as of something
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: in a cage. Stark has seen that look before. In
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: the Luna blocks. There was a thick white scar across
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: the man's forehead. Under it, his blue eyes were sunken
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: and dark behind half closed lids. The man was blind.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: Outside in the distance, men screamed and died. Stark had
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: been increasingly aware of a soreness and stricture around his neck.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: He raised a hand, careful not to rustle the straw.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: His fingers found a long, tangled beard, felt under it
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: and touched a band of metal. Stark's new body wore
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: a collar like Avicious Dog. There was a chain attached
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: to the collar. Stork couldn't find any fastening. The business
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: had been welded on for keeps. His body didn't seem
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: to have liked it much. The neck was galled and chafed.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: The blood began to crawl up hot into Stark's head.
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: He'd worn chains before, he didn't like them, especially around
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: the neck. A door opened suddenly at the far end
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: of the hall. Fog and red daylight spilled in across
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: the black stone floor. A man came in. He was big,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: half naked, blonde, and bloody. His long blade trailed harshly
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: on the flags. His chest was laid open to the bone,
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: and he held the wound together with his free hand.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Word from Bear Dog, he said, they've driven us back
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: into the city, but so far we're holding the gate.
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: No one spoke. The little man nodded his white head.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: The man with a slast chest turned and went out again,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: closing the door. A peculiar change came over Stark at
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: the mention of the name Bayo Dog. He had never
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: heard it before, but it hung in his mind like
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: a spear point, barbed with strange emotion. He couldn't identify
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: the feeling, but it brushed the blind man aside. The
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: hot sepple hatred cooled. Stark relaxed in a sort of
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: icy quiet, deceptively calm as a sleeping cobra. He didn't
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: question this. He waited for Bayo Dog. The blind Man
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: struck his hands down suddenly on the table and stood
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: up Rumna. He said, give me my sword. The little
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: man looked at him. He had milk blue eyes and
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: a face like a friendly bulldog. He said, don't be
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: a fool. Foul On Foulan said softly, damn you give
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: me my sword. Men were dying outside the hall, and
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: not dying silently. Fraulan's skin was greasy with sweat. He
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: made a sudden, darting grab toward Romna. Romna dodged him.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: There were tears in his pale eyes. He said, brutally,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: you'd only be in the way. Sit down, I can
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: find the point Foulan said, to fall on it. Romna's
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: voice went up to a harsh scream. Shut up, shut up,
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: and sit down. Fraulan caught the edge of the table
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: and bent over it. He shivered and closed his eyes,
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: and the tears ran out hot under the lids. The
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: bard turned away and his harp cried out like a woman.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: Fraoulan drew a long, sighing breath. He straightened, slowly, came
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: round the carved high seat, and walked steadily towards Stark.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: You're a very quiet, Conan, he said. What's the matter.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: You ought to be happy, Conan, you ought to laugh
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: and rattle your chain. You're going to get what you wanted?
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Are you sad? Because you haven't any mind anymore to
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: understand that with He stopped and felt with one sandal
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: foot across the straw until he touched Stark's thigh. Stark
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: lay motionless, Conan said the blind man, gently pressing Stark's
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: belly with his foot. Conan, the dog, the betrayer, the butcher,
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: the knife in the back, Remember which you did at Foulga. Conan, No,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: you don't remember. Now. I've been a little rough with you,
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: and you don't remember anymore, but I remember Conan. Long
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: as I live in darkness, I'll remember. Romna stroked the
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: harp strings, and they wept, savage tears for strong men,
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: dead of treachery. Low music, distant, but not soft. Foulon
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: began to tremble, a shallow animal twitching of the muscles.
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: The flesh of his face was drawn, irons shaping under
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: the hammer. Quite suddenly he went down on his knees.
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: His hands struck Stark's shoulders, slid inwards to the throat,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: and locked there outside the sound of fighting had died away.
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: Stark moved very quickly, as though he had seen it
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: and knew it was there. His hands swept out and
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: gathered in the slack of the heavy chain and swung it.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: It started out to be a killing blow. Stark wanted
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: with all his heart to beat foul On's brains out,
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: but at the last second he pulled it, slapping the
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: big man with exquisite judgment across the back of the head.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Foulon grunted and fell sideways, and by that time Romna
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: had come up. He had dropped his harp and drawn
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: a knife. His eyes were startled. Stark sprang up. He
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: backed off, swinging the slack of the chain warningly. His
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: new body moved magnificently. Outside everything was fine, but inside,
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: his psycho neural set up had exploded into civil war.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: He was furious with himself for not having killed Foulon.
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: He was furious with himself for losing control enough to
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: want to kill a man without reason. He hated foul On.
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: He did not hate Foulon because he didn't know him
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: well enough. Stark's trained calculating unemotional brain with their grips
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: with a tidal wave of baseless emotion. He hadn't realized
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: it was baseless until his mental monitor, conditioned through years
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: of bitter control, had stopped him from killing. Now, he
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: remembered the woman's voice saying, my mind will be with yours.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: I'll guide you. Cat's paw. Huh, just a hired hand,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: paid off with a new body in return for two lives. Yeah, two,
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: This baodog, whoever he was, Stark knew now what that cold,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: alien emotion had been leading up to. Hold it, said Stark, hoarsely,
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: Hold everything, Cat's paw, You green eyed, she devil. You
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: picked the wrong guy this time, just for a fleeting incident.
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: He saw her again, leaning forward, with her hair like
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: a running water across the soft foam sparkle of her shoulders.
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Her sea pale eyes were full of mocking laughter and
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: a direct provocative admiration. Stark heard her quite plainly. You
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: may not have any choice, Hugh Stark. They know Conan
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: even if you don't. Besides, it's of no great importance.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: The end will be the same for them. It's just
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: a matter of time. You can save your new body
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: or not, as you wish. She smiled. I'd like it
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: if you did. It's a good body. I knew it
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: before Conan's mind broke and left it empty. A sudden
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: thought came to Stark, my box a million credits, Come
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: and get them. She was gone. Stark's mind was clear,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: with no alien will tramping around in it. Foulon crouched
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: on the floor holding his head. He said, who spoke Romna?
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: The board stood staring. His lips moved, but no sound
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: came out. Stark said, I spoke me, you Stark. I'm
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: not Conan, and I never heard of Falga, and I'll
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: brain the first guy that comes near me. Foul On
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: stayed motionless, his face blank, his breath sobbing in his throat.
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: Romna began to curse, very softly, not as though he
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: were thinking about it. Stark watched them down the hall.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: The doors burst open, the heavy reddish mist coiled in
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: with the daylight across the flags, and with them a
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: press of bodies hot from battle, bringing a smell of blood.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Stark felt the heart contract in the heavy breast of
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: the body named Conan. Watching the single figure that led
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: the pack, Romna called out, bail Dog. She was tall,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: She was built and muscled like a lioness, and she
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: walked with a flat hipped arrogance. And her hair was
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: like coiled flame. Her eyes were blue and bright as
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Foulons might have been once. She looked like foul On.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: She was dressed like him, in a leather kilt and sandals,
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: her magnificent body bare above the waist. She carried a
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: long sword slung across her back, the hilt standing above
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: the left shoulder. She had been using it. Her skin
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: was smeared with blood and grime. There was a long
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: cut on her thigh and another across her flat belly,
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: and bitter weariness lay on her like a burden in
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: spite of her denial of it. We've stopped them, foul On,
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: she said. They can't reach the gate, and we can
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: hold Crumb to Hue as long as we have food
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: and the sea feeds us. She laughed, but there was
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: a hollow sound to it. God's I'm tired, she halted.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: Then below the dais, her flame blew. Gay swept across Foulon,
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: across Romna and rose to meet Hugh Stark's and stayed there.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: The pulse began to beat under Stark's jaw again, and
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: this time his body was strong, and the pulse was
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: like a drum throbbing. Romna said, his mind has come back.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: There was a long, hard silence. No one in the
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: hall moved. Then the men back of Beodog, big brawny,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: kilted warriors, began to close in on the dais, talking
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: in low, snarling undertones that rose toward a mob howl.
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: Foulon rose up and faced them and bellowed them to quiet.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: He's mine to take. Let him alone. BeO Dog sprang
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: up onto the dais, one beautiful flowing movement. It isn't possible,
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: she said. His mind broke under torture. He's been a
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: drooling idiot with barely the defeat himself. And now suddenly
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: you say he's normal again. Stark said, you know I'm normal.
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: You can see it in my eyes. Yes, he didn't
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: like the way she said that. Listen, my name is
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: Hugh Stark. I'm an earthman. This isn't Conan's brain. Come back.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: This is a new deal. I got shoved into this body.
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: What it did before I got it, I don't know it.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: I'm not responsible. Foulan said, he doesn't remember, Folgar, he
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: doesn't remember the long ships at the bottom of the sea.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Foulon laughed. Romano said quietly, he didn't kill you, though
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: he could have easily. Would Conan have spared you? Baio
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: Dog said yes, if he had a better plan. Conan's
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: mind was like a snake. It crawled in the dark,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: and you never knew where it was going to strike.
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: Stark began to tell them how it happened, the chain
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: swinging idly in his hand. While he was talking, he
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: saw a face reflected in a polished shield hung on
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: a pillar. Mostly it was just a tangled black mass
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: of hair mounted on a frame of long, harsh, jutting bone.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: The mouth was sensuous, with a dark sort of laughter
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: on it. The eyes were yellow, the cruel, brilliant yellow
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: of a killer hawk. Stark realized with a shock that
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: the face belonged to him. End of Part one, Part
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: two of Lorelei of the Red Mist by Lee Douglas Brackett.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Part two.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: A woman with pale green hair said BeO Dog softly.
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: Ron said foul on, and Roma's harp made a sound
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: like a high priest's curse. Her people have that power,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: Roma said. They can think a man's soul into a
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: spider and step on it. They have many powers. Maybe
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: Ron followed Knan's mind wherever it went and told it
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: what to say, and brought it back again. Listen, said
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: Stark angrily. I didn't ask. Suddenly, without warning, Roma drew
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: Beodog's sword and threw it at Stark. Stark dodged it.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: He looked at Roma with ugly yellow eyes. Less fine,
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: chain me up, so I can't fight and kill me
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: from a distance. He did not pick up the sword.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: He never used one. The chain felt better, not being
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: too different from a heavy belt or a length of
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: cable or the other chains he's swung on occasion, Romna said,
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: is that Conan Failan snarled? What happened? Romna threw my
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: sword at Conan. He dodged it and left it on
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: the ground. BeO Dog's eyes were narrowed. Conan could catch
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: a flying sword by the hilt, and he was the
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: best fighter on the Red Sea. Barring you, foul On,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: he's trying to trick us. Ron guides him the hell
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: with Ron Star clashed his chain. She wants me to
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: kill the both of you. I still don't know why,
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: all right, I could have killed foul On easy, but
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: I'm not a killer. I never put down anyone except
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: to save my own neck, so I didn't kill him
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: in spite of Ron. And I don't want any part
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: of you or Ron either. All I want is to
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: get the hell out of here. BeO Dog said, his
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: accent isn't Conan's, and the look in his eyes is
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: different too. Her voice had an odd note in it.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: Romna glanced at her. He fingered a few rippling chords
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: on his harp and said, there is one way you
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: could tell for sure. A sudden flush began to burn
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: on BeO Dog's cheekbones, Romna slid unobstrusively out of reach.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: His eyes danced with malicious laughter. BeO Dog smiled the
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: smile of an angry cat, all teeth and no humor.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: Suddenly she walked towards Dark, her head erect, her hands
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: swinging loose and empty at her sides. Stark tensed warily,
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: but the blood leaped pleasantly in his borrowed veins. BeO
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: Dog kissed him. Stark dropped the chain. He had something
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: better to do with his hands. After a while, he
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: raised his head for breath, and she stepped back and whispered, wonderingly,
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: it isn't conan. The hall had been cleared, Stark had
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: washed and shaved himself. His new face wasn't bad, not
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: bad at all. In fact, it was pretty damn good,
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: and it wasn't known around the system. It was a
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: face that could own a million credits and no questions asked.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: It was a face that could have a lot of
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: fun on a million credits. All he had to figure
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: out now was a way to save the neck the
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: face was mounted on, and get his million credits back
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: from that beautiful she devil named Ron. He was still chained,
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: but the straw had been cleaned up, and he wore
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: a leather kilt and a pair of sandals. Foul On
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: sat in his high seat, nursing a flagon of wine.
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: Bao Dog sprawled wearily on a fur rug beside him.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: Romna sat cross legged, his eyes vail ill, sleepily stroking soft,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: wondering music out of his harp. He looked Fay Stark
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: knew his swamp edgers. He wasn't surprised. This man is
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: telling the truth. Roma said, but there's another mind touching
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: his ron's. I think don't trust him. Foul On growled.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: I wouldn't trust a god in Konan's body. Stark said,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: what's the setup? All the fighting out there in this
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: ron dame trying to plant a killer on the inside,
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: and what happened at Falga? Never heard of this whole
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: damn ocean, let alone a place called Falga. The board
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: swept his hand across the strings. I'll tell you, you, Stark,
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: and maybe you won't want to stay in that body
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: any longer. Stark grinned. He glanced at Bayo Dog. She
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: was watching him with the queer intensity from under lowered lids.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: Stark's grin changed. He began to sweat get rid of
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: this body. Hell, it was really a body his own.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Stringy little Corcass had never felt like this, The board said.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: In the beginning in the Red Sea was a race
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: of people, having still their fins and scales. They were amphibious.
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: But after a while part of this race wanted to
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: remain entirely on land. There was a quarrel and a battle,
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: and some of the people left the sea forever. They
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: settled along the shore. They lost their fins and most
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: of their scales. They had great mental powers, and they
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: loved ruling. They subjugated the human peoples and kept them
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: almost in slavery. They hated their brothers who still lived
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: in the sea, and and their brothers hated them. After
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: a time, a third people came to the Red Sea.
• 35:06
  Speaker 1: They were rovers from the north. They raided and reathed
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: and wore no man's collar. They made a settlement on
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: crom de Hue the Black Rock, and built long ships
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: and took toll of the coastal towns. But the slave
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: people didn't want to fight against the rovers. They wanted
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: to fight with them and destroy the seafolk. The rovers
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: were human, and blood calls to blood, and the rovers
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: liked to rule two and this is a rich country. Also,
• 35:38
  Speaker 1: the time had come in their tribal development when they
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: were ready to change from nomadic warriors to builders in
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: their own country. So the rovers and the seafolk, and
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: the slave people who were caught between the two of them,
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: began their struggle for the land. The Bard's fingers thrummed
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: against the strings, so that they beat like angry hearts.
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: Stark saw that Beodog was still watching him, weighing every
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: change of expression on his face. Romna went on. There
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: was a woman named Ron who had green hair and
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: great beauty, and ruled the sea folk. There was a
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: man called Foulon of the ships, and his sister Beodog,
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: which means dagger in the sheath, and they too rule
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: the outland rovers. And there was a man called Conan.
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: The harp crashed out like a sword blade striking. Conan
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: was a great fighter and a great lover. He was
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: next under Foulland of the ships, and Bodog loved him,
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: and they were plighted. Then Conan was taken prisoner by
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: the sea folk during a skirmish, and Ron saw him,
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: and Conan saw Ron. Hugh Stark had a fleeting memory
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: of Ron's face smiling and her low voice saying, it's
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: a good body. I knew it before. BeO Dog's eyes
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: were two stones of blue vitriol under her narrow lids.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: Conan stayed a long time at Falga with Ron of
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: the Red Sea. Then he came back to crom de
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: Hu and said that he had escaped and had discovered
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: a way to take the long ships into the harbor
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: of Falga at the back of Ron's fleet, and from
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: there it would be easy to take the city and
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: Ron with it, and Conan and Beodog were married. Stark's
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: yellow hawk eyes slid over Beyodog sprawled like a young
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: lioness in power and beauty. A muscle began to twitch
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: under his cheekbone. Beodog flushed a slow, deep color. Her
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: gaze did not waver. So the long ships went out
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: from crom de Hu across the Red Sea, and Conan
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: led them into a trap at Falga, and more than
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: half of them were sunk. Conan thought his ship was free,
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: that he had Ron and all she'd promised him, But
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: Foulan saw what had happened and went after him. They fought,
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: and Conan laid his sword across Foulan's brow and blinded him,
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: But Conan lost the fight. Bayo Dog brought them home.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Conan was chained naked in the marketplace. The people were
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: careful not to kill him. From time to time are
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: the things were done to him. After a while, his
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: mind broke, and Foulan had him chained here in the
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: hall where he could hear him babble and play with
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: his chain. It made the darkness easier to bear. But
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: since Falga things have gone badly. From crom de Hue.
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: Too many men were lost, too many ships now ran
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: people have us bottled up here. They can't break in,
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: we can't break out, and so we stay until the
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: harp cried out a bitter question and was still. After
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: a minute or two, Stark said slowly, Yeah, I get it.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: Stalemate for both of you. And Ron figured if I
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: could kill off the leaders, your people might give up.
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: He began to curse, what a lousy, dirty, sneaking trick,
• 39:32
  Speaker 1: and who told her she could use me? He paused,
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: after all he'd be dead now, after all, a new
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: body and a cool million credits ah, the hell with Ron?
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: He hadn't asked her to do it, and he was
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: nobody's hired killer. Where did she get off sneaking around
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: his mind trying to make him do things he didn't
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: even know about, especially to someone like Bayo Doc Still,
• 39:59
  Speaker 1: Ron herself was nobody's crud. And just where was Hugh
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: Stark supposed to cut in on this deal? Cut was right,
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: probably with a long sword, right through the belly swell
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: spot he was in, and a good three strikes on
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: him already. He was beginning to wish he'd never seen
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: the TV Mind's payroll ship, because then he might never
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: have seen the mountains of White Cloud, he said, because
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: everybody seemed to be waiting for him to say something.
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: Usually when there's a deadlock like this, somebody calls in
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: a third party. Isn't there somebody you can yell for?
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: Foul On shook his rough red head. The slave people
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: might rise, but they have at arms and they're not
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: used to fighting. They'd only get massacred and it wouldn't
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: help us any What about those other people that live
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: in the sea? And just what is that sea? Anyhow?
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: Some radiation from it wrecked my ship and got me
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: into this bloody mess, Baodog said lazily. I don't know
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: what it is. The seas our forefathers sailed on were water,
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: but this is different. It will float a ship if
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: you know how to build a hull. Fair. We thin
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: of a white metal we mine from the foothills. But
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: when you swim in it, it's like being in a
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: cloud of bubbles. It tangles, and the farther down you
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: go in it, the stranger. It gets dark and full
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: of fire. I stay down for hours, sometimes hunting the
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: beasts that live there, Stark said, for hours. You have
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: diving suits, then what are they? Stork told her. She
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: shook her head, laughing, Why weigh yourself down that way?
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: There's no trouble to breathe in this ocean. For Cripe's sake,
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: said Stark. Well, I'll be damned. Must be a heavy gas, then,
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: radioactive surface tension under atmospheric pressure enough to float a
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: light hull and high oxygen content without any dangerous mixture. Well, well, okay,
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: why doesn't somebody go down and see if the sea
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: people will help. They don't like Ron's branch of the family,
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: you said, they don't like us either, said Foulon, we
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: stay out of the southern part of the sea. They
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: wreck our ships sometimes. His bitter mouth twisted in a smile.
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: Did you want to go to them for help? Stark
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: didn't quite like the way foulon sounded. It was just
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: a suggestion, he said. Bodog rose stretching, wincing as these
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: stiffened wounds pulled her flesh. Come on, foul On, let's sleep.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: He rose and laid his hand on her shoulder. Romna's
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: harp strings breathed a subtle little mockery of sound. The
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: board's eyes were veiled and sleepy. BeO Dog did not
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: look at Stark, called Conan. Stork said, what about me?
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: You stay chained, said Foulon. There's plenty of time to think,
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: as long as we have food and the sea feeds us.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: He followed BeO Dog through a curtained entrance to the left.
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: Romna got up, slowly, slinging the harp over one white shoulder.
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: He stood, looking steadily into Stark's eyes in the dying
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: light of the fires. I don't know, he murmured. Stark waited,
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: not speaking. His face was without expression. Conan we knew, Stark,
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: we don't know. Perhaps it would have been better if
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: Conan had come back. He ran his thumb absently over
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: the hilt of the knife in his girdle. I don't know.
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: Perhaps it would have been better for all of us
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: if I'd cut your throat before Beodoc came in. Stark's
• 44:04
  Speaker 1: mouth twitched. It was not exactly a smile, you see,
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: said the board seriously to you from outside. None of
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: this is important, except as it touches you. But we
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: live in this little world, we die in it. To us,
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: it's important. The knife was in his hand now it
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: leaped up, glittering into the dregs of the firelight, and
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: fell and leaped again. You fight for yourself, Hugh Stark,
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: ron also fights through you. I don't know. Stark's gaze
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: did not waver. Romna shrugged and put away the knife.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: It is written of the gods, he said, sighing. I
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: hope they haven't done a bad job of the writing.
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: He went out. Stark began to shiver slightly. It was
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: completely quiet in the hall. He examined his collar, the rivets,
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: every separate link of the chain, the staple to which
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: it was fixed. Then he sat down on the fur
• 45:12
  Speaker 1: rug provided for him in place of the straw. He
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: put his face in his hands and cursed steadily for
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: several minutes. Then he struck his fists down hard on
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: the floor. After that he lay down and was quiet.
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: He thought Ron would speak to him. She did not.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: The silent black hours that walked across his heart were
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: worse than any he had spent in the lunar crips.
• 45:43
  Speaker 1: She came soft shod, burying a candle Bayo doog, the
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: dagger in the sheath. Stark was not sleeping. He rose
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: and stood waiting. She set the candle on the table
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: and came not quite to him, and stopped. She wore
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: a length of thin white cloth, twisted loosely at the
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: waist and dropping to her ankles. Her body rose out
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: of it, straight and lovely, touched mystically with shadows in
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: the little wavering light. Who are you, she whispered? What
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: are you? A man? Not Conan? Maybe not you Stark anymore,
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: just the man I loved, the man called Conan. Until
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: she caught her breath and moved closer. She put her
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: hand on Stark's arm. The touch went through him like
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: white fire, The warm, clean, healthy, fragrance of her tasted
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: sweet in his throat. Her eyes searched his. If Ron
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: has such great powers, couldn't it be that Conan was
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: forced to do what he did. Couldn't it be that
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: Ron took his mind and molded it her away, perhaps
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: without his knowing it. It could be Conan was hot,
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: tempered and quarrelsome, but he, Stark said, slowly. I don't
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: think you could have loved him if he hadn't been straight.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: Her hand lay still on his forearm. She stood looking
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: at him, and then her hand began to tremble, and
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: in a moment she was crying, making no noise about it.
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: Stark drew her gently to him. His eyes blazed yellowly
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: in the candlelight. Woman's tears, she said impatiently. After a
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: bit she tried to draw away. I've been fighting too
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: long and losing hand. I'm tired. He let her step back.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: Not for do all the women of crom de Hue
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: fight like men if they want to? There have always
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: been shield maidens, and since Foga, I would have had
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: to fight anyway. To keep from thinking. She touched the
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: collar on Stark's neck, and from seeing she thought of Conan.
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: In the market square, and Conan's shaking his chain and
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: gibbering and foul ons haul and Bao Dog watching it.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: Stark's fingers tightened. He slid his palms upward along the
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: smooth muscles of her arms, across the straight, broad plains
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: of her shoulders, on to her neck, the proud strength
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: of it pulsing under his hands. Her hair fell loose.
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: He could feel the redness of it burning him. She whispered,
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: you don't love me. No, you're an honest man, Hugh Stark.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: You want me to kiss you. Yes, you're an honest woman, Bodog.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: Her lips were hungry, passionate, touched with the bitterness of tears.
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: After a while, Stark blew out the candle. I could
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: love you, Bodog, not the way I mean, the way
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: you mean. I've never said that to any woman before.
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: But you're not like any woman before. And I'm a
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: different man, strange, so strange, Conan and yet not Conan.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: I could love you, BeO Dog if I lived. Harpstrings
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: gave a thrumbing sigh in the darkness, the faintest whisper
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: of sound. BeO Dog started sighed and rose from the
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: fur rug. In a minute she had found flint and
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: steel and got the candle lighted. Romna the board stood
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: in the curtained doorway, watching them presently. He said, you're
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: going to let him go. BeO Dog said yes. Romna nodded.
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: He did not seem surprised. He walked across the dais,
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: laying his harp on the table, and went into another room.
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: He came back almost at once with a hat. Saw
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: bend your neck, he said to Stark. The metal of
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: the collar was soft when it was cut through. Stark
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: got his fingers under it and bent the ends outward
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: without trouble. His old body could never have done that.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: His old body could never have done a lot of things.
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: He figured. Ron hadn't cheated him, not much. He got up,
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: looking at Baodog. Beodog's head was dropped forward, her face
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: veiled behind shining hair. There's only one possible way out
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: of crom de Hue, she said, there was no emotion
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: in her voice. There's a passage leading down through the
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: rock to a secret harbor, just large enough to moure
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: a skiff or two. Perhaps with a knight in the fog,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: you can slip through Ron's blockade, or you can go
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: aboard one of her ships for Falga. She picked up
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: the case. I'll take you down. Wait, Stark said, what
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: about you. She glanced at him, surprised. I'll stay, of course,
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: He looked into her eyes. It's going to be hard
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: to know each other that way. You can't stay here,
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: Hugh Stark. The people would tear you to pieces the
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: moment you went into the street. They may even storm
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: the hall to take you. Look here. She set the
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: candle down and led him to a narrow window. Drawing
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: back the hide they covered it. Stark saw narrow, twisting
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: streets dropping steeply toward the sullen sea. The long ships
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: were broken and sunk in the harbor. Out beyond, riding
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: lights flickering in the red fog were other ships Ron's ships.
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: Over there, said Baodog is the mainland crom To Hughe
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: is connected to it by a tongue of rock. The
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: sea folk hold the land beyond, but we can hold
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: the rock bridge as long as we live. We have
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: enough water, enough food from the sea. But there's no
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: sorrol nor game on crom de Hue. We'll be naked
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: after a while. Without leather offlex, and we'll have scurvy
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: without grain and fruit. We're beaten unless the gods send
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: us a miracle. And we're beaten because of what was
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: done at Volga. You can see how the people feel.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: Stark looked at the dark streets and the silent houses
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: leaning on each other's shoulders, and the mocking lights out
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: in the fog. Yeah, he said, I can see. Besides,
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: there's foul on. I don't know whether he believes your story.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: I don't know whether it would matter. Stark nodded, but
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: you won't come with me. She turned away sharply and
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: picked up the candle again. Are you coming, Romna the
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: bar nodded. He slung his heart over his shoulder. BeO
• 53:02
  Speaker 1: Dog held back the curtain of a small doorway far
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: to the side. Stark went through it and Romna followed,
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: and BeO Dog went ahead with the candle. No one spoke.
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: They went along a narrow passage past store rooms and armories.
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: They paused once while Stark chose a knife, and Romna
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: whispered wait. He listened intently. Stark and Bodog strained their
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: ears along with him. There was no sound in the
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: sleeping dun Romna shrugged. I thought I heard sandals scraping stone,
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: he said. They went on. The passage lay behind a
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: wooden door. It led downward steeply through the rock, a
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: single narrow way, with outside galleries or branches. In some
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: places there were winding steps. It ended finally and a
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: flat ledge low to the surface of the cove, which
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: was a small cavern closed in with the black rock.
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: Beodog set the candle down. There were two little skiffs
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: built of some light metal, moored to rings in the ledge.
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: Two long sweeps leaned against the cave wall. They were
• 54:14
  Speaker 1: of a different metal, outly veined. BeO Dog laid one
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: across the thwarts of the nearest boat. Then she turned
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: to Stark Romna, hung back in the shadows by the
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: tunnel mouth. BeO Dog said quietly, goodbye, man without a name.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: It has to be goodbye. I'm leader now and foul
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: On's place. Besides, these are my people. Her fingers tightened
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: on his wrists, if you could. Her eyes held a
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: brief blaze of hope. Then she dropped her head and said,
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: I keep forgetting you're not one of us. Goodbye, Goodbye, Bodog.
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: Stark put his arms around her. He found her mouth
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: almost cruelly. Her arms were tight about him, her eyes
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: half closed and dreaming. Stark's hands slipped upward toward her
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: throat and locked on it. She bent back her body
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: like a steel bow. Her eyes got fire in them,
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: looking into Stark's, but only for a moment. His fingers
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: pressed expertly on the nerve centers. Baodog's head fell forward limply,
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: and then Romna was on Stark's back, and his knife
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: was pricking Stark's throat. Stark caught his wrist and turned
• 55:38
  Speaker 1: the blade away. Blood ran on to his chest, but
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: the cut was not into the artery. He threw himself
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: backward on to the stone. Romna couldn't get clear in time.
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: The breath went out of him in a rushing gasp.
• 55:53
  Speaker 1: He didn't let go of the knife. Stark rolled over.
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: The little man didn't have a chance with him. He
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: was tough and quick, but Stark's sheer sighs smothered him.
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: Stark could remember when Romna would not have seemed small
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: to him. He hit the barge's jaw with his fist.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: Romana's head cracked hard against the stone. He let go
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: of the knife. He seemed to be through fighting. Stark
• 56:19
  Speaker 1: got up. He was sweating, breathing heavily, not because of
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: his exertion. His mouth was glistening and eager, like a dog's.
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: His muscles twitched, His belly was hot and nodded with excitement.
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: His yellow eyes had a strange look. He went back
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: to Bayo Dog. She lay on the black rock on
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: her back. Candlelight ran pale gold across her brown skin,
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: skirting the sharp, strong hollows between her breasts and under
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: the arching rim of her rib case. Stark knelt across
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: her body, his weight pressed down against her harsh breathing.
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: He stared at her. Sweat stood out on his face.
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: He took her throat between his hands again. He watched
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: the blood grow dark in her cheeks. He watched the
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: veins coil on her forehead. He watched the redness blacken
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: in her lips. She fought a little, very vaguely, like
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: someone moving in a dream. Stark breathed hoarsely, animal like,
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: through an open mouth. Then gradually his body became rigid.
• 57:28
  Speaker 1: His hands froze, not releasing pressure, but not adding any.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: His yellow eyes widened. It was as though he were
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: trying to see Beodg's face, and it was hidden in
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: dense clouds. Back of him, back in the tunnel, was
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: the soft, faint whisper of sandals on uneven rock, sandals
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: walking slowly. Stark did not hear Beodog's face glimmered deep
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: in a heavy mist below him, a blasphemy of a
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: face distarted, blackened. Stark's hands began to open. They opened slowly.
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: Muscles stood like coiled ropes in his arms and shoulders,
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: as though he moved them against heavy weights. His lips
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: peeled back from his teeth. He bent his neck, and
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: sweat dropped from his face and glittered on Boodog's breast.
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: Stark was now barely touching Boo Dog's neck. She began
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: to breathe again, painfully. Stark began to laugh. It was
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: not nice laughter. Rah Ron, he whispered, Ron, you, she devil.
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: He half fell away from Baodg and stood up, holding
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: himself against the wall. He was shaking violently. I wouldn't
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: use your hate for killing, so you tried to use
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: my passion. He cursed her in a flat, sibilant whisper
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: he had never in his profane life really cursed anyone
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: before he heard an echo of laughter dancing in his brain.
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: Stark turned. Foul On of the Ship stood in the
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: tunnel mouth. His head was bent listening, his blind dark
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: eyes fixed on Stark as though he saw him. End
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: of Part two or three of Lorelei of the Red
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: Mist by Lee Douglas Brackett and Ray Bradbury. This LibriVox
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Part three foul On
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: said softly, I hear you, Stark. I hear the other breathing,
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: but they don't speak. They're all right. I didn't mean
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: to do. Foul On smiled. He stepped out on the
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: narrow ledge. He knew where he was going, and his
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: smile was not pleasant. I heard your steps in the
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: passage beyond my room. I knew Bao Dog was leading you,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 1: and where and why. I would have been here sooner,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: but it's a slow way in the dark. The candle
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: lay in his path. He felt the heat of it
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: close to his leg, and stopped and felt for it
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: and ground it out. It was dark, then, very dark,
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: except for a faint, smudgy glow from the scrap of
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: ocean that lay along the cave floor. It doesn't matter,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: Foulon said, as long as I came in time. Stark
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: shifted his weight warily. Foulon, I wanted you alone on
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: this night, of all nights. I wanted you alone. Bao
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: dog fights in my place now, Conan, my manhood needs proving.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: Stark strained his eyes in the gloom, measuring the ledge,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: measuring the place where the skiff was moored. He didn't
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: want to fight Foulan. In Fouolan's place, he would have
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: felt the same. Stark understood perfectly. He didn't hate Fouolan,
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: he didn't want to kill him, and he was afraid
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: of Ron's power over him when his emotions got control.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: You couldn't keep a determined man from killing you and
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: still be uninvolved emotionally. Stark would be damned if he
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: kill any one to suit Ron. He moved silently, trying
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: to slip past Foulan on the outside and get into
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: the skiff. Foulan gave no sign of hearing him. Stark
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: did not breathe. His sandals came down lighter than snowflakes.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: Fauolan did not swerve. He would pass Stark with a
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: foot to spare. They came breast Foulan's hand shot out
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: and caught in Stark's long black hair. The blind man
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: laughed softly and closed in dark swung one from the floor.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: Do it the quickest way and get clear. But Foulan
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: was fast. He came in so swiftly that Stark's fist
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: jarred harmlessly along his ribs. He was bigger than Stark
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: and heavier, and the darkness didn't bother him. Stark bared
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: his teeth. Do it quick, brother, and clear out. Are
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: that green eyed? She cat Faoulan's brute bulk weighed him down.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: Foulan's arm crushed his neck. Foulan's fist was knocking his
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: guts loose, Stark gut moving. He'd fought in a lot
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: of places. He'd learned from stokers and tramps, Marsian, low canalars,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: red eyed Nahali, in the running gutters of Lahi. He
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: didn't use his knife. He used his knees and feet
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: and elbows, and his hands, fist and flat. It was
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: a good fight. Foulon was a good fighter, but Stark
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: knew more tricks. One more, Stark thought, one more'n he's out.
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: He drew back for it, and his heel struck Romna
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: lying on the rock, He staggered, and Foulon caught him
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 1: a clean swinging blow. Stark fell backward against the cave wall.
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: His head cracked the rock. Light flooded crimson across his brain,
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: and then paled and grew cooler ash of clear silver,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: green like water. He sank under it. He was tired,
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: desperately tired. His head ached. He wanted to rest, but
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: he could feel that he was sitting up doing something
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: that had to be done. He opened his eyes. He
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: sat in the stern of a skiff. The law long
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: sweep was laid into its crutch, held like a tiller
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: bar against his body. The blade of the sweep trailed
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: astern in the red sea, and where the metal touched
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 1: there was a spurt of silver fire and a swirling
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: of brilliant motes. The skiff moved rapidly through the sullen fog,
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: through a mist of blood in the hot Venusian night.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: Theo dog crouched in the bow facing Stark. She was
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: bound securely with strips of the white cloth she had worn.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: Bruises showed dark on her throat. She was watching Stark
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: with the intent unwinking, perfectly expressionless gaze of a tigress.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: Stark looked away down at himself. There was blood on
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: his kilt, a brown smear of it across his chest.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: It was not his blood. He drew the knife slowly
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: out of its sheath. The blade was dull and crusted,
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: still a little w Stark looked at Bayodoc. His lips
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: were stiff, swollen. He moistened them and said, hoarsely, what happened.
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 1: She shook her head slowly, not speaking. Her eyes did
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: not waver. A black, cold rage took hold of Stark
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: and shook him ron. He rose and went forward, letting
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: the sweep go where it would. He began to untie
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 1: bayu Dog's wrists. A shape swam toward them out of
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: the red mist, a long ship with two heavy sweeps,
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: bursting fire, astern and a slender figure head shaped like
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: a woman, a woman with hair and eyes of aquamarine.
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: He came alongside the skiff. A rope ladder snaked down.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: Men lined the low rail, slender men with skin that
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: glistened white like powdered snow, and hair the color of
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: distant shallows. One of them said, come aboard, Hugh Stark.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: Stark went back to the sweep. It bit into the sea,
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: sending the skiff in a swift arc away from Ron's ship.
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: Grapnos flew, hooking the skiff at thwart, and gunnel bows
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: appeared in the hands of the men, wicked curving things
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: with barbed wire shafts on the string. The man said again, politely,
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: come aboard. Hugh Stark finished untying bay you Dog. He
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: didn't speak. There seemed to be nothing to say. He
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: stood back while she climbed the ladder, and then followed.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: The skiff was cast loose. The long ship veered away,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: gathering speed. Stark said, where are we going? The man
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: smiled too falgon Stark nodded. He went below with Bayo
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: Dog into a cabin with soft couches covered with silken
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: panels of dark wood, beautifully painted, dim fantastic scenes from
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 1: the past of Ron's people. They sat opposite each other.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: They still did not speak. They raised Falka in the
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 1: opal dawn, a citadel of basalt cliffs, rising sheer from
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: the burning sea, with a long arm holding a harbor
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: full of ships. There were green fields inland and beyond,
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: cloaked in the eternal mists. Of Venus. The mountains of
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: white clouds lifted spaceward. Stark wished that he had never
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: seen the mountains of white cloud Then, looking at his hands,
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: lean and strong on his long thighs, he wasn't so sure.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: He thought of Ron waiting for him. Anger, excitement, and
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: confused violence of emotions set him pacing nervously. Baio Dog
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: sat quietly, withdrawn waiting. The long ship threaded the crowded
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: moorings and slid into place alongside a stone key. Men
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: rushed to make fast. They were human men, as Stark judged,
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: humans like Baodog and himself. They had the shimmering silver
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: hair and fair skin of the Plateau peoples, the fine
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: cut faces and straight bodies. They wore leather collars with
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 1: metal tags, and they went naked like beasts, And they
• 1:08:28
  Speaker 1: were gaunt and bowed with labor. Here and there a
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 1: man with pale blue green hair and resplendent harness stood
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 1: godlike above the swarming masses. Stark and Baodog went ashore.
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: They might have been prisoners are honored guests. Surrounded by
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: their escort from the ship, Streets ran back from the harbor,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: twisting and climbing crazily up the cliffs. Houses climbed on
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: each other's backs. It had begun to rain. The heavy
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: steaming down poor of venus, and the moist heat brought
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: out the choking stinch of people. Too many people. They
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: climbed ankle deep in water, sweeping down the streets that
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: were half stairway. Thin naked children peered out of the
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 1: houses out of narrow alleys. Twice they passed through market squares,
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: where women with blank faces of defeat drew back from
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: the stalls of coarse food to let the party through.
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: There was something wrong. After a while, Stark realized it
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: was the silence in all that horde of humanity. No
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: one laughed or sang or shouted. Even the children never
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: spoke above a whisper. Stark began to feel a little sick.
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 1: Their eyes had a look in them. He glanced at
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: Bayodog and away again. The waterfront street ended in a
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: sheer basalt face, honeycombed with galleries. Stark's party entered them,
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: still climbing. They passed level after a level of huge
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: caverns opened to the sea. There was the same crowding,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: the same stench, the same silence. Eyes glinted in the
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: half light. Bare feet moved furtively on stone. Somewhere a
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: baby cried thinly and was hushed at once. They came
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: out on the cliff top into the clean high air.
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: There was a city here, broad streets lined with trees, low,
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: rambling villas of the black rocks, set in walled gardens,
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: drowned in brilliant vines and giant ferns and flowers. Naked
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: men and women worked in the gardens, or hauled carts
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: of rubbish through the alleys, or hurried on errands, slipping
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: furtively across the main streets where they intersected the mews.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 1: The party turned away from the sea, heading toward an
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: ebon palace sat like a crown above the city. The
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: steaming rain beat on Stark's bare body, and up here
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: you could get the smell of the rain, even through
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: the heavy perfume of the flowers. You could smell Venus
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: in the rain, musky and primitive and savagely alive, a
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: feckened giantess with passion flowers in her outstretched hands. Stark
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: set his feet down like a panther, and his eyes
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: burned a smoky ember. They entered the Palace of Ron.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: She received them in the same apartment where Stark had
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: come to after the crash. Through a broad archway, he
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: could see the high bed where his old body had
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: lain before the life went out of it. The red
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: sea steamed under the rain outside, the rusty fog coiling
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: languidly through the open arches of the gallery. Ron watched
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: them lazily from a raised couch set massively into the wall.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: Her long, sparkling legs sprawled arrogantly across the black spider
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: silk draperies. This time, her tavert was a pale yellow.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 1: Her eyes were still the color of shoal water. Still amused,
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: still secret, still dangerous. Stark said, so you made me
• 1:12:24
  Speaker 1: do it after all, and you're angry. She laughed, her
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: teeth showing white and pointed as bone needles. Her gaze
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: held Stark's. There was nothing casual about it. Stark's hawk
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: eyes turned molten yellow like hot gold, and did not waver.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: Bao Dog stood like a bronze spear, her four arms
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: crossed beneath her bare, sharp breasts. Two of Ron's palace
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: cards stood behind her. Stark began to walk toward Ron.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: She watched him come. She let him get close enough
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: to reach out and touch her, and then she said, slyly,
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: it's a good body, isn't it. Stark looked at her
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: for a moment. Then he laughed. He threw back his
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: head and roared and struck the great corded muscles of
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: his belly with his fist. Presently, he looked straight into
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: Ron's eyes and said, I know you. She nodded, We
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: know each other. Sit down, Hugh Stark. She swung her
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: long legs over to make room half erect, now looking
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: at Bodog, Stark sat down. He did not look at Beodog.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: Ron said, will your people surrender now? BeO Dog did
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: not move, not even her eyelids. If foul On is dead, yes,
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: and if he's not, Beodog stiffened. Stark did too, then
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: said Beodog quietly. They'll wait until he is or until
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: they must surrender. Ron nodded to the guards. She said,
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: see that this woman is well fed and well treated.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: BeO Dog in her escort had turned to go when
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: Stark said wait. The guards looked at Ron, who nodded
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: and glanced quizzically at Stark. Stark said, is foulon dead.
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 1: Ron hesitated, then she smiled, No, you have the most
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: damnably tough mind, Stark. You struck deep, but not deep enough.
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: He may still die, but no, he's not dead. She
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: turned to Beodg and said, with easy mockery, you needn't
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: hold anger against Stark. I'm the one who should be angry.
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 1: Her eyes came back to Stark. They didn't look angry.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: Stark said, there's something else. Conan, the Conan that used
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: to be before Falgar Beyo, Dog's Conan? Yeah, why did
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: he betray his people? Ron studied him, her strange, pale
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: lips curved, her sharp white teeth glistening wickedly with barbed humor.
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: Then she turned to Bayodog. Bodog was still standing like
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: a carved image, but her smooth muscles were ridged with tension,
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: and her eyes were not the eyes of an image
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: Conan are, Stark said, Ron, she's still Bayodog, isn't she
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: all right? I'll tell you Conan betrayed his people because
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: I put it into his mind to do it. He
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: fought me. He made a good fight of it, but
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: he wasn't quite as tough as you are, Stark. There
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: was silence for the first time since entering the room. You.
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: Stark looked at Bayodoc. After a moment, she sighed and
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: lifted her chin and smiled a deep, faint smile. The
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: guards walked out beside her, but she was more erect
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: and lighter of step than either of them. Well, said
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: Ron when they were gone. And what about you, Hugh
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: Stark called, Knan, Have I any choice? I always keep
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: my bargains. Then give me my doe and let me
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 1: clear the hell out of here. Sure that's what you want,
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: That's what I want. You could stay awhile you know
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: with you. Ron lifted her frosty white shoulders. I'm not
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 1: promising half my kingdom or even part of it, but
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: you might be amused. I got no sense of humor.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: Don't you even want to see what happens to crom
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: de Hugh Stark got up. He said savagely, the hell
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: with crom de Hugh and beodog and beaodog? He stopped,
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: then fixed Ron with uncompromising yellow eyes. No, not BeO dog.
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: What are you going to do to her? Nothing? Don't
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: give me that, I say again, nothing. Whatever is done
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: her own people will do what do you mean? I
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: mean that little dagger in the sheaf will be rested,
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: cared for, and fattened for a few days. Then I
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: shall take her aboard my own ship and join the
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: fleet before crom do you BeO? Dog will be made
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: quite comfortable at the masthead, where her people can see her.
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: She will stay there until the rock surrenders. It depends
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: on her own people how long she stays. She'll be
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: given water, not much, but enough. Stark stared at her.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: He stared at her a long time. Then he spat
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: deliberately on the floor and said, in a perfectly flat voice,
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: how soon can I get out of here? Ron laughed
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: a small casual chuckle. Humans, she said, are so damned queer.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: I don't think I'll ever understand them. She reached out
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 1: and struck a gong that stood in a carved frame
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: beside the couch. The soft, deep, shimmery note had a
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: sad quality of nostalgia. Ron lay back against the silken
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: cushions and sighed, ah, good bye, Hugh Stark a pause,
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: then regretfully, good bye Conan. They had made good time
• 1:19:08
  Speaker 1: along the rim of the Red Sea. One of Ron's
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: galleys had taken them to the edge of the Southern
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: Ocean and left them on a narrow, shingled beach under
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: the cliffs. From there they had climbed to the rim
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: rock and gone on foot. Hugh Stark called Conan and
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: four of Roan's arrogant shining men. They were supposed to
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: be guide in escort. They were courteous, and they kept
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 1: pace uncomplainingly, though Stark marched as though the devil were
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: pricking his heels. But they were armed, and Stark was not. Sometimes,
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 1: very faintly, Stark was aware of Roan's mind touching his
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: with the velvet delicacy of a cat's paw. Sometimes he
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: starked it out of his sleep, with her image sharp
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: in his mind, her lips touched with the mocking secret smile.
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: He didn't like that. He didn't like it at all.
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: But he liked even less the picture that stayed with him,
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: waking or sleeping, the picture he wouldn't look at the
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: picture of a tall woman with hair like loose fire
• 1:20:16
  Speaker 1: on her neck, walking on light, proud feet between her guards.
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: She'll be given water, Ron said, not much, but enough.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: Stark gripped the solid squareness of the box that held
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: his million credits and set the miles reeling backward from
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 1: under his sandals. On the fifth night, one of Ron's
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 1: men spoke quietly across the campfire. Tomorrow. He said, we'll
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: reach the pass. Stark got up and went away by
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: himself to the edge of the rim rock that fell
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: sheer to the burning sea. He sat down. The red
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 1: fog wrapped him like a mist of blood. He thought
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: of the blood on Bodog's breast the first time he
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: saw her. He thought of the blood on his knife,
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: crusted and dried. He thought of the blood poured rank
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: and smoking into the gutters of crumb to hue. The
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: fog has to be red, he thought, of all the
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: goddamn colors in the universe. It has to be red,
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: red like BeO Dog's hair. He held out his hands
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: and looked at them, because he could still feel the
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: silken warmth of that hair against his skin. There was
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: nothing there now but the old white scars of another
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: man's battles. He set his fists against his temples and
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: wished for his old body back again, the little stunted
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: abortion that had clawed and scratched its weight to survival
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: through sheer force of mind, a most damnably tough mind,
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: Ron had said, Yeah, it had had to be. But
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: a mind was a mind. It didn't have emotions. It
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: just figured out something coldly and then went ahead and
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: never questioned, And it controlled the body utterly, because the
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: body was only the worthless machinery that carried the mind around. Worthless. Yeah,
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: the few women he'd ever looked at had told him that,
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 1: and he hadn't even minded much. The old body hadn't
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: given him any trouble. He was having trouble now. Stark
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: got up and walked. Tomorrow we reached the pass. Tomorrow
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: we go away from the Red Sea. There are nine
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: planets and the whole damn belt. There are women on
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: all of them, all shapes and colors and sizes human,
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: semi human, and god knows what. With a million credits,
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: a guy could buy half of them, and with Koonan's
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: body he could buy the rest. What's a woman anyway?
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: Only a water. She'd be given water, not much, but enough.
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 1: Conan reached out and took hold of a spire of rock,
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 1: and his muscle stood out like knotted ropes. Oh God,
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 1: he whispered, what's the matter, with me love. It wasn't
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: God who answered. It was Ron. He saw her plainly
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: in his mind, heard her voice like a silver bell.
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: Conan was a man, Hugh Stark. He was whole body
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: and heart and brain. He knew how to love and
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 1: with him. It wasn't women but one woman An. Her
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: name was Beayudoc. I broke him, but it wasn't easy.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: I can't break you. Stark stood for a long long time.
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: He did not move, except that he trembled. Then he
• 1:24:03
  Speaker 1: took from his belt the box containing his million credits
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: and threw it out as far as he could over
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: the cliff edge. The red mist swallowed it up. He
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: did not hear it strike the surface of the sea.
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: Perhaps in that sea there was no splashing. He did
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: not wait to find out. He turned back along the
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: rim rock toward a place where he remembered a cleff
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: or chimney leading down. And the four shiny men who
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: wore Ron's harness came silently out of the heavy, luminous
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 1: night and wringed him in their sword points caught sharp
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 1: red glimmers from the sky. Stork had nothing on him
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: but a kilt and its sandals, and a cloak of
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: tight woman spider silk that shed the rain. Ron sent you,
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 1: he said. The men nodded to kill me again. They nodded.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: The blood rained out of Stark's face, leaving it gray
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: and stony under the bronze. His hand went to his
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 1: throat over the gold fastening of his cloak. The four
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 1: men closed in like dancers. Stark loosened his cloak and
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: swung it like a whip across their faces. He confused
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: them for a second, for a heartbeat, no more, but
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: long enough. Stark left two of them to tangle their
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: blades in the heavy fabric, and leafed aside. A sharp
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: edge slipped and turned along his ribs. And then he
• 1:25:33
  Speaker 1: had reached in low and caught a man around the ankles,
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: and used the thrashing body for a flail. The body
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: was strangely light, as though the bones in it were
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: no more than rigid membrane, like a fish. If he
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: had stayed to fight, they would have finished him in seconds.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: They were fighting men, and quick, but Stark didn't stay.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 1: He gained his moments grace and used it. They were
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: hard on his heel, their points all but pricking his
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: back as he ran, but He made it along the
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: ram rock, out along a narrow tongue that jutted over
• 1:26:09
  Speaker 1: the sea, and then outward, far outward, into red fog
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: and dim fire that rolled around his plummeting body. Oh God,
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: he thought, if I guessed wrong and there is a beach,
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: the breath tore out of his lungs, his ears cracked,
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: went dead. He held his arms out beyond his head,
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: the thumbs locked together, his neck braced forward against the
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: terrific upward push. He struck the surface of the sea.
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: There was no splash, dim coiling fire that drifted with
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: infinite laziness around him, caressing his body with slow, tingling sparks.
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 1: A feeling of lightness, as though his flesh had become
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: one with the drifting fire. A sense of suffocation that
• 1:26:59
  Speaker 1: had no basis in fact, and gave way gradually to
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: a strange exhilaration. There was no shock of impact, no
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: crushing pressure, merely a cushioning softness, like dropping into a
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 1: bed of compressed air. Stark felt to himself turning end
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: over end pinwheel fashion, and then that stopped, so that
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: he sank quietly and without haste, to the bottom, or
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 1: rather into the crystalline upper reaches of what seemed to
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 1: be a forest. He could see it spreading away under
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: the downward sloping floor of the ocean, into the vague
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: red shadows of distance. Slender fantastic trunks upholding a maze
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 1: of delicate, shining branches, without leaves or fruit. They were
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 1: like trees exquisitely molded from ice, transparent, holding the lambent,
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: shifting fire of the strained sea. Stark didn't think that
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: they were, or ever had been, alive. More like coral,
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 1: he thought, or some vagary of mineral deposit. Beautiful though,
• 1:28:07
  Speaker 1: like something you'd see in a dream, Beautiful, silent, and
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: somehow deadly. He couldn't explain that feeling of deadliness. Nothing
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: moved in the red drifts between the trunks. There was
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 1: nothing about the trees themselves. It was just something he sensed.
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: He began to move among the upper branches, following the
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: downward drop of the slope. He found that he could
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: swim quite easily, or perhaps it was more like flying.
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: The dense gas buoyed him up, almost balancing the weight
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: of his body so that it was easy to swoop along,
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: catching a crystal branch and using it as a lever
• 1:28:49
  Speaker 1: to throw himself forward to the next one. He went
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: deeper and deeper into the heart of the forbidden Southern Ocean.
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: Nothing stirred. The fairy forest stretched limitless ahead, and Stark
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: was afraid. Ron came into his mind abruptly, her face,
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: clearly outlined, was full of mockery. I'm going to watch
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: you die, Hugh Stark called Knan. But before you die,
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 1: I'll show you something. Look. End of Part three, Part
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: four of Loralai of the Red Mist by Lee Douglas
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: Brackett and Ray Bradberry. This LibriVox recording is in the
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: public domain. Part four her face dimmed, and in its
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: place was crumb to Hugh rising bleak into the red fog,
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: the long ships broken and sunk in the harbor, and
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: Ron's fleet around it in a shining circle. One ship,
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: in particular, the flagship the vision in Stark's mind, rushed
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: toward it, narrowed down to the mastet platform, to the
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: woman who stood there, naked, erect, her body lashed tight
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: with thin cruel cords, a woman with red hair blowing
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 1: in the slow wind, and blue eyes that looked straight
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: ahead like a falcon's at cromb to Hugh Bayo. Dog
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: Ron's laughter ran across the picture and blurred it like
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 1: a ripple of ice cold water. You'd have done better,
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: she said, to take the clean steel when I offered
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: it to you. She was gone, and Stork's mind was
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: as empty and cold as the mind of a corpse.
• 1:30:49
  Speaker 1: He found that he was standing still, clinging to a branch,
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: his face upturned, as though by some blind instinct, his
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: sight blurred. He had never cried before four in all
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: his life, nor preyed. There was no such thing as
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: time down there, in the smoky shadows of the sea bottom.
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: It might have been minutes or hours later that Hugh
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: Stark discovered he was being hunted. There were three of them,
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: slipping easily among the shining branches. They were pale, golden,
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: almost phosphorescent, about the size of large hounds. Their eyes
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: were huge, jewel like in their slim, sharp faces. They
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: possessed four members that might have been legs and arms
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: retracted now against their arrowing bodies. Golden membranes spread winglike
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: from head to flank, and they moved like wings, balancing
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: expertly the thrust of the flat powerful tails. They could
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: have closed in on him easily, but they didn't seem
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: to be in any hurry. Stark had sense enough not
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: to wear himself out by trying to get away. He
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: kept on going watching them. He discovered that the crystal
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: branches could be broken, and he selected himself one with
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 1: a sharp forked tip, shoving its sword wise under his belt.
• 1:32:15
  Speaker 1: He didn't suppose it would do much good, but it
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: made him feel better. He wondered why the things didn't
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: jump him and get it over with. They looked hungry
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: enough the way they were showing him their teeth, but
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: they kept about the same distance away, in a sort
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: of crescent formation, and every so often the ones on
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: the outside would make a tentative darted him, then fall
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: back as he swerved away. It wasn't like being hunted
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: so much. As Stark's eyes narrowed, he began suddenly to
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: feel much more afraid than he had before, and he
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have believed that possible. The things weren't hunting him
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: at all. They were hurting him. There was nothing he
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 1: could do about it. He tried stopping, and they swooped
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: in and snapped at him, working expertly together so that
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: while he was trying to stab one of them with
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: his clumsy weapon. The others were worrying his heels like
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: sheep dogs at a reculcitrant weather. Stark like the weather,
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: bowed to the inevitable and went where he was driven.
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: The golden hounds showed their teeth in animal laughter and
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: sniffed hungrily at the thread of blood he left behind
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: him in the slow red coils of fire. After a
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 1: while he heard the music. It seemed to be some
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: sort of a harp, with a strange quality of vibration
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 1: of the notes. It wasn't like anything he'd ever heard before.
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: Perhaps the gas of which the sea was composed was
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: an extraordinarily good conductor of sound, with a property of
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: diffusion that made the music seem to come from everywhere
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: at once, softly, at first, something touched upon in a dream,
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: and then as he drew closer to the source, swelling
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: into a racing, rippling flood of melody that wrapped itself
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: around his nerves. With a demoniac shiver of ecstasy, the
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: golden hounds began to fret with excitement, spreading their shining wings,
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: driving him impatiently faster through the crystal branches, Stark could
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: feel the vibration growing in him, the very fibers of
• 1:34:28
  Speaker 1: his muscles shuddering in sympathy with the unearthly harp. He
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: guessed there was a lot of the music he couldn't hear,
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: too high, too low for his ears to register, but
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: he could feel it. He began to go faster, not
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: because of the hounds, but because he wanted to. The
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: deep quivering in his flesh excited him. He began to
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 1: breathe harder, partly because of increased exertion, and some chemical
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: quality of the mixture he breathed made him slightly drunk.
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: The thrumming harp song stroked and stung him, waking a deeper,
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: darker music. And suddenly he saw Bayu Dog clearly, half
• 1:35:11
  Speaker 1: veiled and mystic in the candlelight at foul ons done smooth,
• 1:35:16
  Speaker 1: curving bronze, her hair loose, fire about her throat. A
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: great stamp of agony went through him. He called her
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: name once, and the harp song swept it up and away,
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: And then suddenly there was no music anymore, and no forest,
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: and nothing but cold embers in Stark's heart. He could
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: see everything quite clearly in the time it took him
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: to float from the top of the last tree to
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: the floor of the plane. He had no idea how
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: long a time that was. It didn't matter. It was
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: one of those moments when time doesn't have any meaning.
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: The rim of the forest fell away in a long
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: curve that melted, glistening into the spark shot sea. From it,
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: the plane stretched out a level, glassy floor of black obsidian,
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: the spew of some long dead volcano, or was it dead.
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: It seemed to Stark that the light here was redder,
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: more vital, as though he were close to the source
• 1:36:19
  Speaker 1: from which it sprang. As he looked farther over the plain,
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: the light seemed to coalesce into a shimmering curtain that
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: wavered like the heat veils that danced along the Mercurean
• 1:36:30
  Speaker 1: twilight belt at high noon. For one brief instant, he
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: glimpsed a picture on the curtain, a city black shining
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: fantastically turreted, the gigantic reflection of a titan's dream. Then
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: it was gone, and the immediate menace of the foreground
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: took all of Stark's attention. He saw the flock herded
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: by more of the golden hounds, and he saw the
• 1:36:58
  Speaker 1: shepherd with the horse held silent between his hands. The
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: flock moved sluggishly, phosphorescently, one hundred two hundred, silent, limply
• 1:37:10
  Speaker 1: floating warriors, drifting down the red dimness in pears, singly,
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 1: or in pallid clusters. They came. The golden hounds winged silently,
• 1:37:22
  Speaker 1: leisurely among them, channeling them in tides that sluiced toward
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: the fantastic Ebban city. The shepherd stood a crop of obsidian,
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: turning his sharp, pale face. His sharp aquamarine eyes found stark.
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: His silvery hand leaped beckoningly over hard threads, striking them
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 1: a blow. Reverberations rang out. Seized stark shook him. He
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: dropped his crystal dagger. Hot screens of fire exploded in
• 1:37:55
  Speaker 1: his eyes. Bubbles whirled and danced in his ear drums.
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: He lost all muscular control. His dark head fell forward
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: against the thick blackness of hair on his chest. His
• 1:38:07
  Speaker 1: golden eyes dissolved into weak, inane yellow, and his mouth loosened.
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: He wanted to fight, but it was useless. This shepherd
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: was one of the sea people. He had come to see,
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 1: and one way or another he would see him. Dark
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: blood filled his aching eyes. He felt himself led, nudged,
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 1: forced first this way, then that a golden hound slipped by,
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: gave him a pressure which roiled him over into a
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: current of sea blood. It ran down past where the
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: shepherd stood, with only a harp for a weapon. Stark
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: wondered dimly whether these other warriors in the flock drifting
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: were dead or alive. Like himself. He had another surprise coming.
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: They were all rons Men, men of Falga, silver men
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: with burning green hair. Ron's men. One of them, a
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: huge warrior, colored like powdered salt, wandered aimlessly by on
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 1: another tide, his green eyes dull. He looked dead. What
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: business had the sea people with the dead warriors of Falga?
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: Why the hounds and the shepherd's harp questions? Eddie like
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 1: lifted silt in Stark's tired hanging head, eddied and settled flat.
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: Stark joined the pilgrimage. The hounds, with deft flickerings of wings,
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 1: ushered him into the midst of the flock. Bodies brushed
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: against him, cold bodies. He wanted to cry out, the
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 1: cords of his neck constricted in his mind. The cry
• 1:39:53
  Speaker 1: went forward are you alive? Men of Foga? No answer
• 1:39:58
  Speaker 1: but the drift of Sku Lord pale bodies. The eyes
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 1: in them knew nothing. They had forgotten Volga, they had
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: forgotten Ron, for whom they had lifted blade. Their tongues
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 1: lolling and mouths asked nothing but sleep. They were getting it.
• 1:40:17
  Speaker 1: A hundred two hundred strong. They made a strange human river,
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: slipping toward the gigantic city wall. Stark called Knan and
• 1:40:28
  Speaker 1: his bitter enemies going together. From the corners of his eyes,
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: Stark saw the shepherd move. The shepherd was like Ron
• 1:40:37
  Speaker 1: and her people, who had years ago abandoned the sea
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: to live on land. The shepherd seemed colder, more fish
• 1:40:44
  Speaker 1: like them. There were small translucent webs between the thin
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: fingers and spanning the long toed feet. Thin scar like
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: gills in the shadow of his tapered chin lifted and
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 1: sealed in the current, eating taking some. And it's from
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: the blood colored sea. The harp spoke, and the golden
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: hounds obeyed. The harp spoke, and the bodies twisted uneasily
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 1: as in a troubled sleep. A triple cord of it
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 1: came straight at Stark. His fingers clenched, and the dead
• 1:41:19
  Speaker 1: shall walk again, another ironic ripple of music, and Ron's
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: men will rise again, this time against her. Stark had
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 1: time to feel a brief bewildered shivering before the current
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: hurled him forward, clamoring drunkenly, witlessly. All about him, the dead,
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: bustless warriors of Foga tried to crush past him, all
• 1:41:48
  Speaker 1: of them at once. Long ago, some vast sea titan
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: had dreamed of avenues struck from blackstone, each stone the
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: size of three men tall. There had been a dream
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: of walls going up and up until they dissolved into
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 1: scarlet mist. There had been another dream of sea gardens,
• 1:42:09
  Speaker 1: in which fish hung like erotic flowers on tendrils of
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: sensitive film tissue. Whole beds of fish clung to garden
• 1:42:18
  Speaker 1: base like colonies of flowers, aglow with sunlight, and on
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: occasion a black amobic presence filtered by playing the gardener
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: weeding out an amber flower here and amethystine bloomed there.
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: And the sea titan had dreamed of endless balustrades and battlements,
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: of windowless turrets, where creatures swayed like radium skinned phantoms,
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: carrying their green plumes. Of hair in their lifted palms,
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 1: and looked down with curious, insolent eyes from on high.
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 1: Women with shimmering bodies like some incredible coral harvested and
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: kept high over these black stone streets, each in its archway.
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: Stark was alone. Falga's warriors had gone off along a
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 1: dim subterranean vent vanished now. The faint beckoning of harp
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: and the golden hounds behind him turned him down a
• 1:43:16
  Speaker 1: passage that opened out into a large circular stone room,
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: one end of which was opened out into a hall.
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: Around the ebbon ceiling, slender schools of fish swam. It
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: was there, bright efflugence that gave light to the room.
• 1:43:34
  Speaker 1: They had been there, breeding, eating, dying a thousand years,
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: giving light to the place as they would be there,
• 1:43:41
  Speaker 1: breeding and dying a thousand more. The harp faded until
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: it was only a murmur. Stark found his feet, strength
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: returned to him. He was able to see the man
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: in the center of the room well too well. The
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: man hung in the fire tide. Chains of wrought bronze
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: held his thin, fleshless ankles so he couldn't escape. His
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: body desired it. It floated up. It had been dead
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: a long time. It was gaseous with decomposition, and it
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: wanted to rise to the surface of the Red Sea.
• 1:44:22
  Speaker 1: The chains prevented this. Its arms weaved like white scarves
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: before a sunken white face, black hair trembled on end.
• 1:44:32
  Speaker 1: He was one of Foulon's men, one of the rovers,
• 1:44:37
  Speaker 1: one of those who had gone down at Falga because
• 1:44:40
  Speaker 1: of Conan. His name was Geel. Stark remembered the part
• 1:44:46
  Speaker 1: of him that was Conan remembered the name. The dead
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: lips moved, Conan, What luck is this, Conan? I make
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: you welcome. The words were cruel, the lips around them
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: loose and dead. It seemed to Stark An anger and
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: embittered wrath lay deep in those hollow eyes. The lips
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: twitched again. I went down at Falga for you and Ron. Conan,
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 1: remember part of Stark remembered and twisted in agony. We're
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: all here, Conan, all of us, Cleve and Mont and
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: Braun and Acyir. Remember a sir who could shape metal
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: over his spine, playing it with his fingers. Asir is here,
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: big as a sea monster, waiting in a niche, cold
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 1: and loose as string. The sea shepherds collected us, collected
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: us for a purpose of irony. Look the pointless fingers
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: hung out as in a wind pointing. Stark turned slowly,
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 1: and his heart pounded an uneven shadowing drum beat. His
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 1: jaw clenched, and his eyes blurred. That part of him
• 1:46:08
  Speaker 1: that was Conan cried out. Conan was so much of him,
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: and he so much of Conan, it was impossible for
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: a cleavage. They grown together, like pearl material around sand,
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: specule layer on layer, Stark cried out. In the hall
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: which this circular room overlooked, stood a thousand men in
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: lines of fifty across, shouldered to shoulder. The men of
• 1:46:37
  Speaker 1: crom de Hue stared unseeingly up at Stark. Here and
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: there a face became shockingly familiar old memory cried their names,
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: braun clev mont Ay, Sir. The collected decomposition of their
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: bodily fluids raised them, drifted them above the flags. Each
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: of them was chained like Geel Geil whispered, we have
• 1:47:08
  Speaker 1: made a union with the men of Foga. Struck pulled
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: back Fogle. In death, all men are equals. He took
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 1: his time with it. He was in no hurry. Dead
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: bodies under sea are never in a hurry. They sort
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 1: of bump and drift, and by their time the dead
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: serve those who give them a semblance of life. Tomorrow
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: we march against Crome.
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 2: Do you.
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: You're crazy? Crom To? He is your home. It's the
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: base of Bayo dog and foul on and interrupted the
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: hanging corpse quietly conan a he laughed. A crystal dribble
• 1:47:55
  Speaker 1: of bubbles ran up from the slack mouth, especially Tonan Conan,
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: who sank us at Volga. Stark moved swiftly. Nobody stopped him.
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: He had the corpse's sharp blade in an instant. Gil's
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 1: chest made a cold, silent sheath for it. The blade
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: went like a fork through butter coldly. Without noticing this,
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: Gil's voice spoke out, stab me, cut me. You can't
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 1: kill me any debtor, make sections of me. Play butcher
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: a flank, a hand, a heart, and while you're at it,
• 1:48:37
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you the plan. Snarling, Stark seized the blade
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: out again with blind violence. He gave sharp blow after
• 1:48:46
  Speaker 1: blow at the body, cursing bitterly, and the body took
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: each blow, rocking in the red tide a little, and said,
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 1: with a matter of fact, tone, We'll march out of
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: the sea to crom to hughes Gate, Romna, and the
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 1: others looking down, recognizing us, will have the gates thrown
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: wide to welcome us. The head tilted lazily, the lips
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 1: peeled wide and folded down languidly over the words. Think
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: of the elation Conan, the moment when Braun and Monte
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: and Aesir and I and yourself, yes, even yourself Conan
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: returned to crom de hu Stark saw it vividly, saw
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: it like a tapestry woven for him. He stood back,
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 1: gasping for breath, his nostrils flaring, seeing what his blade
• 1:49:39
  Speaker 1: had done to Gil's body, and seeing the great stone
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 1: gates of crom de Hue crashing open. The deliberation, the happiness,
• 1:49:49
  Speaker 1: the elation to foul On and Romna, to see old
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: friends returned, Old Rover's, long thought dead, alive again come
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 1: to help. It made a picture with great deliberations. Stork
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 1: struck flat across before him. Gil's head, severed from its
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 1: lazy body, began with infinite tiredness to float toward the
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 1: ceiling as it traveled upward, now facing now bobbing the
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: back of its skull towards Stork. It finished its nightmare,
• 1:50:23
  Speaker 1: speaking and then once inside the gates, what then, Conan,
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 1: Can you guess? Can you guess what we'll do? Conan
• 1:50:38
  Speaker 1: Stork stared at nothingness, the sword trembling at his fist.
• 1:50:42
  Speaker 1: From far away, he heard Gil's voice. We will kill
• 1:50:46
  Speaker 1: foul Ln in his hall. He will die with surprised lips.
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 1: Roma's harp will lie in his disemboweled stomach. His heart,
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 1: with its last pulsings, will sound the stre and as
• 1:51:02
  Speaker 1: for Bayudad. Stark tried to push the thoughts away. Raging
• 1:51:06
  Speaker 1: and helpless. Gill's body was no longer anything to look at.
• 1:51:11
  Speaker 1: He had done all he could do it. Stark's face
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 1: was bleached white and scraped down to the insane bone
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 1: of it. You'd kill your own people. Gil's separated head
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 1: lingered at the ceiling, light fish illuminating its ghastly features.
• 1:51:29
  Speaker 1: Our people. But we have no people. We're another race now,
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 1: the dead. We do the biddings of the sea shepherds.
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 1: Stark looked out into the hall. Then he looked at
• 1:51:44
  Speaker 1: the circular wall. Okay, he said, without tone in his voice,
• 1:51:51
  Speaker 1: come out wherever you're hiding and using this voice throwing act,
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 1: come on out and talk straight. In answer, an entire
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 1: section of ebbenstones fell back on silent hinge work. Stark
• 1:52:04
  Speaker 1: saw a long, slender, black marble table. Six people sat
• 1:52:09
  Speaker 1: behind it in carbon midnight thrones. They were all men,
• 1:52:14
  Speaker 1: naked except for film like garments about their loins. They
• 1:52:18
  Speaker 1: looked at Stark with no particular hatred or curiosity. One
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 1: of them cradled a harp. It was the shepherd who
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 1: drawn Stark through the gate amusedly. His webbed fingers lay
• 1:52:31
  Speaker 1: on the strings now and then, bringing out a clear
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 1: sound from one of the two hundred strands. The shepherd
• 1:52:38
  Speaker 1: stopped Stark's rushed forward with a cry of that harp.
• 1:52:43
  Speaker 1: The blade in his hand was red hot. He dropped it.
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 1: The shepherd put a head on the story. And then
• 1:52:52
  Speaker 1: and then we will march Ron's dead warriors all the
• 1:52:55
  Speaker 1: way to Falga. There, Ron's people seeing the warriors will
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: be overjoyed, hysterical to find their friends and relatives returned.
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 1: They too will fling wide Falga's defenses, and death will
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 1: walk in, disguised as resurrection. Stark nodded, slowly, wiping his
• 1:53:18
  Speaker 1: hand across his cheek back on earth. We call that
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 1: psychology good psychology, But will it fool ron? Ron will
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 1: be with her ships at Crome de Hue. While she's gone,
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 1: the innocent population will let ind their lost warriors gladly.
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 1: The shepherd had amused green eyes. He looked like a
• 1:53:42
  Speaker 1: youth of some seventeen years, deceptively young. If Stark guessed right,
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 1: the youth was nearer to two centuries old. That's how
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 1: you lived and looked when you were under the Red Sea.
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 1: Something about the emanations of it kept part of you young.
• 1:54:00
  Speaker 1: Stark lited his yellow hawk's eyes thoughtfully. You've got all
• 1:54:06
  Speaker 1: the aces you'll win. But what's crom To Hugh do you?
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 1: Why not just rawn? She's one of you. You hate
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 1: her more than you do the rovers. Her ancestors came
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 1: up on land. You never got over hating them for that.
• 1:54:23
  Speaker 1: The shepherd shrugged toward crom To Hugh. We have little
• 1:54:28
  Speaker 1: actual hatred, except that they are by nature land men.
• 1:54:32
  Speaker 1: Even if they do row by boat and pillagers. One
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: day they might try their luck on the sunken devices
• 1:54:39
  Speaker 1: of this city. Stark put a hand out. We're fighting
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 1: Ron too. Don't forget we're on your side, whereas we
• 1:54:50
  Speaker 1: are on no ones, retorted the green haired youth except
• 1:54:54
  Speaker 1: our own. Welcome to the army which will attack crom
• 1:54:59
  Speaker 1: To Hugh. Me by the gods over my dead body,
• 1:55:04
  Speaker 1: that said the youth, amusedly, is what we intend. We've
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 1: worked many years, you see to perfect the plan. We're
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 1: not much good out on land. We needed bodies that
• 1:55:18
  Speaker 1: could do the work for us. So every time Foulon
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 1: lost a ship or Ron lost a ship, we were
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 1: there with our golden hounds, waiting, collecting, saving, waiting until
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 1: we had enough of each side's warriors. They'll do the
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: fighting for us. Oh not for long, of course. The
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 1: source energy will give them a symbolance of life, a
• 1:55:45
  Speaker 1: momentary electrical ability of walk and combat. But once out
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 1: of water, they'll last only half an hour. But that
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 1: should be time enough. Once the gates of Crome de
• 1:55:55
  Speaker 1: Hue and Foga are open, stroke said, Ron will find
• 1:56:01
  Speaker 1: some way around you get her first attack crom To
• 1:56:05
  Speaker 1: Hue the following day. The youth deliberated, you're stalling, but
• 1:56:12
  Speaker 1: there's sense in it. Ron is most important. We'll get
• 1:56:17
  Speaker 1: Falka first. Then you'll have a bit of time in
• 1:56:20
  Speaker 1: which to raise false hopes. Stark began to get sick again.
• 1:56:25
  Speaker 1: The room swam very quietly, very easily. Ron came into
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: his mind again. He felt her glide in, like the
• 1:56:37
  Speaker 1: merest touch of a sea fern weaving in a tide pool.
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: He closed his mind down, but not before she snatched
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 1: at a thread of thought. Her aquamarine eyes reflected desire
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: and inquiry. Hugh Stark, you're with the sea people. Her
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 1: voice was soft. He shook his head. Tell me, Hugh Stark,
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: how are you plotting against Valga? He said nothing, He
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 1: thought nothing. He shut his eyes. Her finger nails glittered,
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: raking at his mind. Tell me his thoughts rolled tightly
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: into a metal sphere which nothing could dent. Ron laughed
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 1: unpleasantly and leaned forward until she filled every dark horizon
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 1: of his skull with her shimmering body. All right, I
• 1:57:33
  Speaker 1: gave you Conan's body. Now I'll take it away. She
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: struck him a combined blow of her eyes, her writhing lips,
• 1:57:43
  Speaker 1: her moaned, sharp teeth. Go back to your old body,
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: Go back to your old body, Hue Stark, she hissed,
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 1: Go back, Leave Conan to his idiocy. Go back to
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 1: your oh old body, fear had him. He fell down
• 1:58:04
  Speaker 1: upon his face, quivering and jerking. You could fight a
• 1:58:08
  Speaker 1: man with a sword, but how could you fight this
• 1:58:11
  Speaker 1: thing in your brain? He began to suck sobbing breaths
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: through his lips. He was screaming. He could not hear himself.
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 1: Her voice rushed in from the dim outer red universe,
• 1:58:23
  Speaker 1: destroying him. He stark, go back to your old body.
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 1: His old body was dead, and she was sending him
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 1: back into it. Part of him shot in wise through
• 1:58:40
  Speaker 1: red fog. He lay on a mountain plateau, overlooking the
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 1: harbor of Foga. Red fog coiled and snaked around him.
• 1:58:49
  Speaker 1: Flame birds dived eerily down at his staring blind eyes.
• 1:58:54
  Speaker 1: His old body held him Putrefaction stuffed his nosh. The
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 1: flesh sagged and slipped greasily on his loosened structure. He
• 1:59:06
  Speaker 1: felt small again and ugly. Flamebirds nibbled, picking, choosing between
• 1:59:12
  Speaker 1: his ribs. Pain gorged him. Cold blackness, nothingness filled him
• 1:59:20
  Speaker 1: back in his old body forever. He didn't want that.
• 1:59:27
  Speaker 1: The plateau, the red fog vanished, the flamebirds too. He
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 1: lay once more on the floor of the sea shepherds struggling.
• 1:59:36
  Speaker 1: That was just a start Ron told him, next time,
• 1:59:41
  Speaker 1: I'll leave you up there on the plateau in that body. Now,
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 1: will you tell the plans of the sea people and
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 1: go on living in conan? He's yours. If you tell,
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 1: she smirked, you don't want to be dead. Stark tried
• 2:00:00
  Speaker 1: to reason it out anyway He turned with the wrong way.
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 1: He grunted out of breath. If I tell, you'll still
• 2:00:10
  Speaker 1: kill Baio doc her life in exchange for which you know,
• 2:00:15
  Speaker 1: Hugh Stark. Her answer was too swift. It had the
• 2:00:19
  Speaker 1: sound of treachery. Stark did not believe he would die.
• 2:00:26
  Speaker 1: That would solve it. Then, at least Ron would die
• 2:00:30
  Speaker 1: when the sea people carried out their strategy. That much
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 1: revenge at least damn it. Then he got an idea
• 2:00:42
  Speaker 1: end of Part four, Part five of Loralai of the
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 1: Red Mist by Lee Douglas Brockett and Ray Bradberry. This
• 2:00:56
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Part five. He
• 2:01:03
  Speaker 1: coughed out a laugh, raised his weak head to look
• 2:01:06
  Speaker 1: at the startled sea shepherd. His little dialogue with Ron
• 2:01:10
  Speaker 1: had taken about ten seconds, actually, but it had seemed
• 2:01:14
  Speaker 1: a century. The sea shepherd stepped forward. Stark tried to
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 1: get to his feet. Got a proposition for you. You
• 2:01:25
  Speaker 1: with the harp, Ron's inside me. Now, unless you guarantee
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 1: crom To you and Bayo dog safety, I'll tell her
• 2:01:36
  Speaker 1: something she might want to be in. On the sea
• 2:01:41
  Speaker 1: Shepherd drew a knife. Stark shook his head coldly, put
• 2:01:47
  Speaker 1: it away. Even if you get me, I'll give the
• 2:01:49
  Speaker 1: whole damned strategy to Ron. The shepherd dropped his hand.
• 2:01:54
  Speaker 1: He was no fool. Ron towards Stark's brain. Tell me,
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 1: tell me their plan. He felt like a guy in
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 1: a revolving door. Stark got the seamen in focus. He
• 2:02:08
  Speaker 1: saw that they were afraid, now, doubtful and nervous. I'll
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 1: be dead in a minute, said Stark. Promise me the
• 2:02:17
  Speaker 1: safety of crime to you, and I'll die without telling
• 2:02:20
  Speaker 1: Ron a thing. The Sea Shepherd hesitated, then raised his
• 2:02:25
  Speaker 1: palm upward. I promise, he said, crom To, you will
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 1: go untouched. Stark sighed. He let his head fall forward
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 1: until it hit the floor. Then he rolled over, put
• 2:02:39
  Speaker 1: his hands over his eyes. It's a deal. Go give
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 1: Rod hell for me, Will you boys? Give her hell?
• 2:02:49
  Speaker 1: As he drifted into mind darkness, Ron waited for him feebly.
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 1: He told her, okay, duchess, you'd kill me if I
• 2:03:00
  Speaker 1: told you. The idea I'm ready try, Your god awful
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 1: is to shove me back into that stinked body of mine.
• 2:03:08
  Speaker 1: I'll fight you all the way there, Ron screamed. It
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 1: was a pretty frustrated stream. Then the pains began. She
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 1: did a lot of work on his mind. In the
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 1: next minute. That part of him that was Koonan held
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 1: on like a clam, holding to its precious contents. The
• 2:03:31
  Speaker 1: odor of putrid flesh returned, the blood mist returned, the
• 2:03:37
  Speaker 1: flame birds fell down at him in spirals of sparks
• 2:03:40
  Speaker 1: and blistering smoke. To winnow his naked ribs, Stark spoke
• 2:03:45
  Speaker 1: one last word before the blackness took him. Bail dog.
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 1: He never expected to awaken again. He awoke just the same.
• 2:03:59
  Speaker 1: There was red sea all around him. He lay on
• 2:04:02
  Speaker 1: a kind of stone bed, and the young sea shepherd
• 2:04:05
  Speaker 1: sat beside him, looking down at him, smiling delicately. Stark
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 1: did not dare move for a while. He was afraid
• 2:04:14
  Speaker 1: his head might fall off and whirl away like a
• 2:04:16
  Speaker 1: big fish, using his ears as propellers. Lord he muttered,
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 1: barely turning his head. The sea creature stirred you. One
• 2:04:29
  Speaker 1: you fought Ron and one Stark groaned. Ah, I feel
• 2:04:37
  Speaker 1: like something passed through a wildcat's intestines. Oh she's gone.
• 2:04:43
  Speaker 1: Ron's gone, he laughed. That makes me sad. Somebody cheer
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 1: me up. Ron's gone, he felt, of his big, flat
• 2:04:56
  Speaker 1: muscled body. She was bluffing, trying to drive me batty.
• 2:05:01
  Speaker 1: She knew she couldn't really tuck me back into that carcass,
• 2:05:05
  Speaker 1: but she didn't want me to know. It was like
• 2:05:08
  Speaker 1: a baby's nightmare before it's born. Or maybe you haven't
• 2:05:11
  Speaker 1: got a memory like me. He rolled over, stretching. She
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 1: won't ever get in my head again. I've locked the
• 2:05:21
  Speaker 1: gate and swallowed the key. His eyes dilated. What's your name,
• 2:05:27
  Speaker 1: Lenai said the man with the harp. You didn't tell
• 2:05:31
  Speaker 1: Ron our strategy. What do you think? Lenai smiled sincerely.
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 1: I think I like you, man of Crome. To you,
• 2:05:43
  Speaker 1: I think I like your hatred for Ron. I think
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 1: I like the way you handled the entire matter. Wanted
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 1: to kill Ron and save Crom to you, and being
• 2:05:54
  Speaker 1: so willing to die to accomplish either. That's a lot
• 2:05:59
  Speaker 1: of thinking. And what about that promise you made? It
• 2:06:03
  Speaker 1: will be kept. Stark gave him a hand. Lonai, you're okay.
• 2:06:09
  Speaker 1: If I ever get back to Earth, so help me.
• 2:06:12
  Speaker 1: I'll never bait a hook again and drop it in
• 2:06:14
  Speaker 1: the sea. It was lost to Lunai. Stark forgot it
• 2:06:19
  Speaker 1: and went on laughing. There was an edge of hysteria
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 1: to it, relief. You got booted around for days. People
• 2:06:28
  Speaker 1: milled in and out of your mind like it was
• 2:06:30
  Speaker 1: a bargain basement, counter pawing over the threads and convolutions,
• 2:06:35
  Speaker 1: yelling and fighting. The woman you loved was starved on
• 2:06:38
  Speaker 1: a ship masthead, and as a climax, a lady with
• 2:06:42
  Speaker 1: green eyes tried to make you a filling for an
• 2:06:45
  Speaker 1: accident and mangled body. And now you had an ally
• 2:06:50
  Speaker 1: and you couldn't believe it. He laughed in little starts
• 2:06:54
  Speaker 1: and stops, his eyes shut. Will you let me take
• 2:07:00
  Speaker 1: care of ron when the time comes? His fingers groped
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 1: hungrily upward, closed on an imaginary figure of her, pressed, tightened, choked,
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 1: Lenai said, she's yours. I'd like the pleasure, but you
• 2:07:17
  Speaker 1: have as much, if not more, of a revenge to take.
• 2:07:20
  Speaker 1: Come along, we start now. You've been asleep for one
• 2:07:25
  Speaker 1: entire period, Stark let himself down gingerly. He didn't want
• 2:07:30
  Speaker 1: to break a leg off. He felt if someone touched
• 2:07:33
  Speaker 1: him he might disintegrate. He managed to let the tide
• 2:07:38
  Speaker 1: handle him do all the work. He swam carefully after
• 2:07:41
  Speaker 1: Leneye down three passageways, where an occasional silver inhabitant of
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 1: the city slid by drifting below them in a vast
• 2:07:50
  Speaker 1: square hall, each gravitating but imprisoned by leg shackles. The
• 2:07:56
  Speaker 1: warriors of Falga looked up with pale, cold eyes that
• 2:08:00
  Speaker 1: Stark and Leni. Occasional discharges of lightfish from interstices in
• 2:08:06
  Speaker 1: the walls passed luminous fleeting glows over the warriors. The
• 2:08:11
  Speaker 1: light fish flirted briefly in a long, shining rope that
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 1: tied knots around the dead faces, and as quickly untied them.
• 2:08:20
  Speaker 1: Then the light fish pulsed away, and the red color
• 2:08:23
  Speaker 1: of the sea took over. Bathed in wine, thought Stark,
• 2:08:28
  Speaker 1: without humor. He leaned forward. Men of Vulgar Lenai plucked
• 2:08:35
  Speaker 1: a series of harp threads. Ah, a deep suggestion of
• 2:08:42
  Speaker 1: sound issued from a thousand dead lips. We go to
• 2:08:47
  Speaker 1: sac Ron's citadel. Run came the muffled thunder of voices.
• 2:08:56
  Speaker 1: At the sound of another tune, the golden hounds appeared.
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 1: They touched the chains. The men of Foga released, danced
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 1: through the Red Sea substance siphoned into a valve a mouth.
• 2:09:09
  Speaker 1: They were drawn out into a grand volcanic courtyard. Stark
• 2:09:14
  Speaker 1: went close after he stared down into a black ravine,
• 2:09:18
  Speaker 1: at the bottom of which was a blazing caldera. This
• 2:09:23
  Speaker 1: was the source life of the Red Sea. Here it
• 2:09:26
  Speaker 1: had begun a millennium ago. Here the savage cyclones of
• 2:09:30
  Speaker 1: sparks and fire energy belched up, shaking titanic black garden walls,
• 2:09:36
  Speaker 1: causing currents and whirlpools that threatened to suck you forward
• 2:09:40
  Speaker 1: and shoot you violently up to the surface. And cannialas
• 2:09:43
  Speaker 1: of force thrust in capillaries of ignited mist, in shoots
• 2:09:47
  Speaker 1: of color that threatened to cremate, but only exhilarated you,
• 2:09:52
  Speaker 1: gave you a seething rebirth. He braced his legs and
• 2:09:56
  Speaker 1: fought the suction. An unbelievable sinew of fire sprang up
• 2:10:02
  Speaker 1: from out of the ravine, crackling and roaring. The men
• 2:10:07
  Speaker 1: of Falga did not fight the attraction. They moved forward
• 2:10:11
  Speaker 1: in their silence and hung over the incandescence. The vitality
• 2:10:17
  Speaker 1: of the source grew upward in them. It seemed to
• 2:10:20
  Speaker 1: touch their sandaled toes first, and then, by a process
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 1: of shining osmosis, climb up the limbs, into the loins,
• 2:10:29
  Speaker 1: into the vitals, delineating their strong bone structure. As mercury
• 2:10:34
  Speaker 1: delineates the glass thermometer. With a rise of temperature, the
• 2:10:40
  Speaker 1: bones flickered like carved polished ivory through the momentarily film
• 2:10:44
  Speaker 1: like flesh. The ribs of a thousand men expanded like
• 2:10:49
  Speaker 1: silvered spider legs clenched, then expanded again. Their spines straightened,
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 1: their shoulders flattened back. Their eyes, the last to take
• 2:10:59
  Speaker 1: there now, were ignited and glowed like candles and refurbished sepulchers.
• 2:11:06
  Speaker 1: The chins snapped up, the entire outer skins of their
• 2:11:09
  Speaker 1: bodies broke into silver brilliance. Swimming through the storm of
• 2:11:15
  Speaker 1: energy like nightmare figments entering cold, they reached the far
• 2:11:20
  Speaker 1: side of the ravine, resembling smelted metal from blast furnaces.
• 2:11:26
  Speaker 1: When they brushed into one another, purple sparks sizzled, jumped
• 2:11:30
  Speaker 1: from head to head, from hand to hand, then I
• 2:11:34
  Speaker 1: touched Stark's arm. You're next. No, thank you, afraid, laughed
• 2:11:41
  Speaker 1: the harp shepherd. You're tired. It will give you new life.
• 2:11:45
  Speaker 1: You're next. Stark hesitated only a moment. Then he let
• 2:11:51
  Speaker 1: the tide drift him rapidly out. He was afraid, damned, afraid.
• 2:11:57
  Speaker 1: A belch of fire caught him. As he arrived in
• 2:11:59
  Speaker 1: the core of the ravine, he was wrapped in layers
• 2:12:03
  Speaker 1: of ecstasy. Bao Dog pressed against him. It was her
• 2:12:07
  Speaker 1: consuming hair that netted him and branded him. It was
• 2:12:11
  Speaker 1: her warmth that crept up his body, into his chest,
• 2:12:15
  Speaker 1: and into his head. Somebody yelled somewhere in animal delight
• 2:12:20
  Speaker 1: and unbearable passion. Somebody danced and threw out his hands
• 2:12:25
  Speaker 1: and crushed that solar warmth deeper into his huge body.
• 2:12:31
  Speaker 1: Somebody felt all tiredness oldness fluomed away. A whole new
• 2:12:36
  Speaker 1: feeling of warmth and strength inserted that somebody was Stark.
• 2:12:42
  Speaker 1: Waiting on the other side of the ravine were a
• 2:12:44
  Speaker 1: thousand men of Volga. What sounded like a thousand harps
• 2:12:49
  Speaker 1: began playing now, and as Stark reached the other side,
• 2:12:54
  Speaker 1: the harps began marching, and the warriors marched with them.
• 2:12:58
  Speaker 1: They were still dead, but you would never know it.
• 2:13:02
  Speaker 1: There were no mines inside those bodies. The bodies were
• 2:13:06
  Speaker 1: being activated from outside, but you would never know it.
• 2:13:11
  Speaker 1: They left the city behind in imbering ranks. The soldier
• 2:13:16
  Speaker 1: fighters were led by golden hounds and distant harps to
• 2:13:20
  Speaker 1: a place where a huge intracoastal tide swept by. They
• 2:13:25
  Speaker 1: got on the tide for a free ride. The nay
• 2:13:28
  Speaker 1: beside him. Using his harp, Stark felt himself sucked down
• 2:13:33
  Speaker 1: through a deep where strange monsters sprawled. They looked at
• 2:13:38
  Speaker 1: Stark with hungry eyes, but the harp walls swept them back.
• 2:13:43
  Speaker 1: Stark glanced about at the men. They don't know what
• 2:13:47
  Speaker 1: they're doing, he thought, going home, to kill their parents
• 2:13:50
  Speaker 1: and their children, to set the flame to Falga, and
• 2:13:54
  Speaker 1: they don't know it. They're alive, but dead, faces tilted up,
• 2:13:59
  Speaker 1: always upward, as though visions of Ron's citadel were there.
• 2:14:04
  Speaker 1: Ron Stark let the wrath simmer in him. He let
• 2:14:09
  Speaker 1: it cool. Then it was cold. Ron hadn't bothered him
• 2:14:15
  Speaker 1: now for hours. Was there a chance she'd read his
• 2:14:19
  Speaker 1: thought in the midst of that fighting nightmare? Did she
• 2:14:22
  Speaker 1: know this plan for Falga. Was that an explanation for
• 2:14:27
  Speaker 1: her silence?
• 2:14:27
  Speaker 2: Now?
• 2:14:29
  Speaker 1: He sent his mind ahead subtly Ron Ron. The only
• 2:14:36
  Speaker 1: answer was the move of silver bodies through the fiery deeps.
• 2:14:41
  Speaker 1: Just before dawn they broke the surface of the sea.
• 2:14:45
  Speaker 1: Falga drowsed in the red smeared fog silence. Its slave
• 2:14:49
  Speaker 1: streets were empty and dew covered. High up, the first
• 2:14:54
  Speaker 1: light was bathing Ron's gardens and setting her citadels aglow.
• 2:14:59
  Speaker 1: Lunai in the shallows beside Stark. They both were smiling,
• 2:15:04
  Speaker 1: half cruel smiles. They had waited long for this. Lunai nodded,
• 2:15:11
  Speaker 1: this is the day of the carnival. Fruit, wine and
• 2:15:15
  Speaker 1: love will be offered the returned soldiers of Ron. In
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 1: the streets there will be dancing. Far Over to the
• 2:15:23
  Speaker 1: right lay a rise of mountain at its blunt peak.
• 2:15:27
  Speaker 1: Stark stared at it intently, rested a body of a
• 2:15:31
  Speaker 1: little scrawny earthmen with flame birds clustered on it. He
• 2:15:36
  Speaker 1: climbed that mountain. Later, when it was over and there
• 2:15:39
  Speaker 1: was time, What are you searching for? Asked Lonai. Stark's
• 2:15:45
  Speaker 1: voice was distant. Someone I used to know filing out
• 2:15:50
  Speaker 1: on the stone keys their rustling sandals eroded by time.
• 2:15:54
  Speaker 1: The men stood clean and bright. Stark paced a caged
• 2:15:59
  Speaker 1: animal at their center so his dark body would pass unnoticed.
• 2:16:03
  Speaker 1: They were seen. The cliff guard looked down over the
• 2:16:07
  Speaker 1: dirty slave dwellings from their narrow galleries and set up
• 2:16:11
  Speaker 1: a cry. Hands waved, pointed frosty white. In the dawn,
• 2:16:16
  Speaker 1: more guards loped down the ramps and galleries, meeting, joining others,
• 2:16:20
  Speaker 1: and coming on Lonai in the sea by the key
• 2:16:24
  Speaker 1: suggested a theme on the harp. The other harps took
• 2:16:28
  Speaker 1: it up. The shuddering music lifted from the water, and
• 2:16:33
  Speaker 1: with a gentle firmness set the dead feet marching down
• 2:16:37
  Speaker 1: the keys upward through the narrow, stifling alleys of the
• 2:16:41
  Speaker 1: slaves to meet the guard. Slave people peered out at
• 2:16:46
  Speaker 1: them tiredly from their choked quarters. The passing of warriors
• 2:16:50
  Speaker 1: was old to them, of no significance. These warriors carried
• 2:16:55
  Speaker 1: no weapons. Stark didn't like that part of it. A
• 2:16:59
  Speaker 1: lyth of chain even he wanted, But this emptiness of
• 2:17:02
  Speaker 1: the hands, his teeth ached for too long a time
• 2:17:07
  Speaker 1: of clinching his jaws tight. The muscles of his arms
• 2:17:10
  Speaker 1: were feverish and nervous. At the edge of the slave
• 2:17:15
  Speaker 1: community at the cliff base. The guard confronted them, running
• 2:17:20
  Speaker 1: down off the gallery's swords. Naked, they ran to intercept
• 2:17:23
  Speaker 1: what they took to be an enemy. The guard stopped
• 2:17:27
  Speaker 1: in blank confusion. A little laugh escaped Stark's lips. It
• 2:17:32
  Speaker 1: was a dream with fog over under and in between
• 2:17:36
  Speaker 1: its parts. It wasn't real to the guard, who couldn't
• 2:17:39
  Speaker 1: believe it. It wasn't real to these dead men either,
• 2:17:43
  Speaker 1: who were walking around. He felt alone. He was the
• 2:17:48
  Speaker 1: only live one. He didn't like walking with dead men.
• 2:17:53
  Speaker 1: The captain of the guard came down warily, his green
• 2:17:56
  Speaker 1: eyes suspicious. The suspicion faded, his face fell apart. He
• 2:18:03
  Speaker 1: had lain on his fur pelts for months, thinking of
• 2:18:06
  Speaker 1: his son, who would die to defend Valga. Now his
• 2:18:09
  Speaker 1: son stood before him, alive. The captain forgot he was captain.
• 2:18:15
  Speaker 1: He forgot everything. His sandals scraped over stones. You could
• 2:18:20
  Speaker 1: hear the air go out of his lungs and come
• 2:18:23
  Speaker 1: back in a numbed prayer. My son, in Ron's name,
• 2:18:28
  Speaker 1: They said you were slain by foul Lion's men one
• 2:18:31
  Speaker 1: hundred darknesses ago. My son. A harp tinkled somewhere the
• 2:18:37
  Speaker 1: son stepped forward, smiling. They embraced The son said nothing,
• 2:18:43
  Speaker 1: he couldn't speak. That was the signal for the others.
• 2:18:47
  Speaker 1: The whole guards, shocked and surprised, put away their swords
• 2:18:51
  Speaker 1: and sought out old friends, brothers, fathers, uncles, sons. They
• 2:18:56
  Speaker 1: moved up the galleries, the guard and the returned warriors
• 2:19:00
  Speaker 1: stark in their midst threading up the cliff through passage
• 2:19:04
  Speaker 1: after passage, all talking at once, or so it seemed,
• 2:19:09
  Speaker 1: the guards did the talking. None of the dead warriors replied.
• 2:19:14
  Speaker 1: They only seemed to. Stark heard the music strong and
• 2:19:19
  Speaker 1: clear everywhere. They reached the green gardens atop the cliff.
• 2:19:24
  Speaker 1: By this time the entire city was awake. Women came running,
• 2:19:28
  Speaker 1: bare breasted and sobbing and throwing themselves forward into the
• 2:19:31
  Speaker 1: ranks of their lovers. Flowers showered over them. So this
• 2:19:37
  Speaker 1: is war, muttered Stark uneasily. They stopped in the center
• 2:19:42
  Speaker 1: of the great gardens. The crowd milled happily, not yet
• 2:19:46
  Speaker 1: aware of the strained silence from their men. They were
• 2:19:49
  Speaker 1: too happy to notice. Now, cried Stork to himself, now's
• 2:19:54
  Speaker 1: the time now, As if in answer, a wild skirling
• 2:19:59
  Speaker 1: of harp out of the sky. The crowd stopped laughing
• 2:20:03
  Speaker 1: only when there were turned warriors of Foga swept forward,
• 2:20:06
  Speaker 1: their hands lifted and groping before them. The crying in
• 2:20:11
  Speaker 1: the streets was like a far siren wailing. Metal made
• 2:20:15
  Speaker 1: a harsh clamor that was sheathed in silence. At the
• 2:20:18
  Speaker 1: same moment, Metal found flesh to lie in. A vicious
• 2:20:22
  Speaker 1: Pantamon was concluded in the green, moist gardens. Stark watched
• 2:20:28
  Speaker 1: from Ron's empty citadel. Fog plumes strolled by the archways,
• 2:20:33
  Speaker 1: and a thick rain fell. It came like a blood
• 2:20:37
  Speaker 1: squall and washed the garden below until you could not
• 2:20:40
  Speaker 1: tell rain from blood. The returned warriors had gotten their
• 2:20:45
  Speaker 1: swords by now. First they killed those nearest them in
• 2:20:49
  Speaker 1: the celebration, Then they took the weapons from the victims.
• 2:20:54
  Speaker 1: It was very simple and very unpleasant. The slaves had
• 2:20:58
  Speaker 1: joined battle now, swarming up from the slave town, plucking
• 2:21:02
  Speaker 1: up fallen daggers and short swords, they circled the gardens,
• 2:21:06
  Speaker 1: happening upon arrogant, shining warriors of Ron, who had so
• 2:21:10
  Speaker 1: far escaped. The quiet, deadly killing of the alive but
• 2:21:14
  Speaker 1: dead men dead Father killed startled alive son, dead brother garanted,
• 2:21:21
  Speaker 1: unbelieving brother Carnival. Indeed, in Falga, an old man waited alone.
• 2:21:29
  Speaker 1: Stork saw him. The old man had a weapon, but
• 2:21:32
  Speaker 1: refused to use it. A young warrior of Falga, harped
• 2:21:36
  Speaker 1: on by Liney's harp, walked quietly up to the old man.
• 2:21:42
  Speaker 1: The old man cried out his voice formed words, son,
• 2:21:46
  Speaker 1: what is this? He flung down his blade and made
• 2:21:50
  Speaker 1: to plead with his boy. The son stabbed him with
• 2:21:55
  Speaker 1: silent efficiency, and without a glance at the body, walked
• 2:21:59
  Speaker 1: onward to find another. Stark turned away, sick and cold.
• 2:22:06
  Speaker 1: A thousand such scenes were being finished. He set fire
• 2:22:11
  Speaker 1: to the black spider silk tapestries. They whispered and talked
• 2:22:15
  Speaker 1: with flame. The stone echoed his feet as he searched
• 2:22:19
  Speaker 1: room after room. Ron had gone probably last night. That
• 2:22:25
  Speaker 1: meant that crom de hu was on the verge of falling.
• 2:22:28
  Speaker 1: Was foul undead at the people of crom de Hue,
• 2:22:32
  Speaker 1: seeing Bayu Dog's suffering given in Falga's harbor was completely
• 2:22:37
  Speaker 1: devoid of ships except for small fishing skiffs. The fog
• 2:22:42
  Speaker 1: waited him. When he returned to the garden, rain found
• 2:22:45
  Speaker 1: his face. The Citadel of Ron was fire encrusted and
• 2:22:50
  Speaker 1: smoke shrouded. As he looked up at it, a silence
• 2:22:54
  Speaker 1: lay in the garden. The fight was over. The men
• 2:22:59
  Speaker 1: of Falga, still shining with source life, hung their blades
• 2:23:03
  Speaker 1: from uncomprehending fingers, the light beginning to leave their green eyes.
• 2:23:08
  Speaker 1: Their skin looked dirty and dull. Stork wasted no time
• 2:23:13
  Speaker 1: getting down the galleries, through the slave quarter into the
• 2:23:16
  Speaker 1: keys again. Then I awaited him, gently patting the obedient harp.
• 2:23:22
  Speaker 1: It's over. The slaves will own what's left. They'll be
• 2:23:26
  Speaker 1: our allies since we've freed them. Stork didn't hear. He
• 2:23:31
  Speaker 1: was squinting off over the Red Sea, and I understood.
• 2:23:36
  Speaker 1: He plucked two tones from the harp, which pronounced the
• 2:23:39
  Speaker 1: two words uppermost in Stark's thought, crom de hue. If
• 2:23:45
  Speaker 1: we're not too late, Stork leaned forward. If Faulon lives,
• 2:23:49
  Speaker 1: if bo Dog still stands at the mast head. Like
• 2:23:53
  Speaker 1: a blind man, he walked straight ahead until he fell
• 2:23:56
  Speaker 1: into the sea. It was not quite a million miles
• 2:24:00
  Speaker 1: to Crome to Hugh, It only seemed that far. A
• 2:24:04
  Speaker 1: sweep of tide picked them up just offshore from Valga
• 2:24:08
  Speaker 1: and siphoned them rapidly through deeps, along coastal latitudes, through
• 2:24:13
  Speaker 1: crystal forests. He cursed every mile of the way. He
• 2:24:18
  Speaker 1: cursed the time it took to pause at the Titan
• 2:24:20
  Speaker 1: city to gather fresh men, to gather Kleb and Mant
• 2:24:24
  Speaker 1: and Asyer and Bruce. Impatiently, Stark watched the whole drama
• 2:24:29
  Speaker 1: of the source fire and the bodies again. This time
• 2:24:32
  Speaker 1: it was the bodies of Crome to Hu men hung
• 2:24:36
  Speaker 1: like beasts on slow turned spits, their limbs and vitals,
• 2:24:40
  Speaker 1: soaking through and through their skins, taking bronze color, their
• 2:24:44
  Speaker 1: eyes holding flint sparks. And then the harps wove a
• 2:24:49
  Speaker 1: garment around each and the garment moved the men instead
• 2:24:53
  Speaker 1: of the men the garment in the tidle basilic now
• 2:24:57
  Speaker 1: Stark twisted. Coursing behind him were the the new bodies
• 2:25:00
  Speaker 1: of Kleve and Aceer. The current elevated them, poked them
• 2:25:05
  Speaker 1: through obsidian needle eyes like spider silk threads. There was
• 2:25:10
  Speaker 1: good irony in this. Crom To Hue's men, fallen at
• 2:25:14
  Speaker 1: Falga under Knan's treachery, were turned now under Conan to
• 2:25:19
  Speaker 1: exonerate that treachery. Suddenly they were in crom to Hu's
• 2:25:24
  Speaker 1: outer basin. Shadows swept over them, the long, dark, falling
• 2:25:29
  Speaker 1: shadows of Foga's longboats lying in that harbor. Shadows like
• 2:25:33
  Speaker 1: black culling nets let down. The school of men cleaved
• 2:25:38
  Speaker 1: the shadow nets. The tide ceased here, eddied and distilled them.
• 2:25:45
  Speaker 1: Stark glared up at the immense silver bottom of a
• 2:25:48
  Speaker 1: Fougian ship. He felt his face stiffen and his throat tightened. Then,
• 2:25:53
  Speaker 1: flexing knees, he rammed upward. Night air broke dark red
• 2:25:58
  Speaker 1: around his head. The harbor held flare torches on the
• 2:26:02
  Speaker 1: rims of long ships, on the neck of land that
• 2:26:05
  Speaker 1: led from crom to Hue to the mainland. The continuing
• 2:26:09
  Speaker 1: battle sounded. Faint cries and clashing made their way through
• 2:26:13
  Speaker 1: the fog veils. They sounded like echoes of past streams.
• 2:26:19
  Speaker 1: Lonai let Stark have the leash. Stark felt something pressed
• 2:26:23
  Speaker 1: into his fist, a coil of slender, green woven reeds,
• 2:26:28
  Speaker 1: a rope with hooked weights on the end of it.
• 2:26:31
  Speaker 1: He knew how to use it without asking, but he
• 2:26:34
  Speaker 1: wished for a knife now, even though he realized carrying
• 2:26:38
  Speaker 1: a knife in the sea was all but impossible if
• 2:26:40
  Speaker 1: you wanted to move fast. He saw the sleek, naked
• 2:26:45
  Speaker 1: figurehead of Ron's best ship a hundred yards away, a
• 2:26:49
  Speaker 1: floating silhouette, its torches hanging fire like Baodog's hair. He
• 2:26:54
  Speaker 1: swam toward it, breathing quietly. When at last the silvered
• 2:26:59
  Speaker 1: figure had with the mocking green eyes and the flag
• 2:27:02
  Speaker 1: of Shoals shallow hair, hung over him. He felt the
• 2:27:06
  Speaker 1: cool white ship metal kiss his fingers. A smell of
• 2:27:10
  Speaker 1: tarch smoke lingered. A rise of faint shouts from the
• 2:27:14
  Speaker 1: land told of another rush upon the gate behind him,
• 2:27:18
  Speaker 1: a ripple, then a thousand ripples. The resurrected men of
• 2:27:24
  Speaker 1: crom To Hugh rose in dense and stirrings of sparkling wine.
• 2:27:29
  Speaker 1: They stared at crom To Hugh, and maybe they knew
• 2:27:33
  Speaker 1: what it was, and maybe they didn't. For one moment,
• 2:27:37
  Speaker 1: Stark felt apprehension. Suppose when I was playing a game.
• 2:27:42
  Speaker 1: Suppose once these men had won the battle, they went
• 2:27:45
  Speaker 1: on into crom To Hue to rupture Rhymna's harp and
• 2:27:49
  Speaker 1: make foul on the blinder. He shook the thought away
• 2:27:53
  Speaker 1: that would have to be handled in time. On either
• 2:27:57
  Speaker 1: side of them, Cleve and Mont appeared. They looked at
• 2:28:01
  Speaker 1: crom To Hugh, their lips shut. Maybe they saw foulons eerie,
• 2:28:06
  Speaker 1: and heard a harp that was more than these harpset
• 2:28:08
  Speaker 1: sang them to blade and plunder Rhumna's instrument, telling bard
• 2:28:13
  Speaker 1: tales of the rovers and the coastal wars and the
• 2:28:17
  Speaker 1: old living days. Their eyes looked and looked at crom
• 2:28:22
  Speaker 1: To Hugh, but saw nothing. The sea shepherds appeared now,
• 2:28:28
  Speaker 1: the followers of Lenai, each with his harp, and the
• 2:28:31
  Speaker 1: harp music began high, so high you couldn't hear it.
• 2:28:35
  Speaker 1: It wove attention on the air, silently, with a grim certainty.
• 2:28:42
  Speaker 1: The dead but not dead gathered in a bronze circle
• 2:28:45
  Speaker 1: about Ron's ship. The very silence of their encirclement made
• 2:28:49
  Speaker 1: your skin crawl, and sweat break cold on your cheeks.
• 2:28:54
  Speaker 1: A dozen ropes went raveling, looping over the ship's side.
• 2:28:58
  Speaker 1: They caught hell grapneld hooked. Stork had thrown his speltid
• 2:29:04
  Speaker 1: bite and hold. Now he scrambled swiftly, cursing up its length,
• 2:29:08
  Speaker 1: kicking and slipping at the silver hull. He reached the top.
• 2:29:13
  Speaker 1: Baue Dog was there, half over the low rail. He
• 2:29:17
  Speaker 1: hesitated just looking at her. Torchlight limbed her, shadowed her.
• 2:29:24
  Speaker 1: She was still erect. Her head was tired and her
• 2:29:27
  Speaker 1: eyes were closed, her face thinned and less brown, but
• 2:29:31
  Speaker 1: she was still alive. She was coming out of a
• 2:29:35
  Speaker 1: deep stupor. Now at the whistle of ropes in the
• 2:29:37
  Speaker 1: grate of metal hooks on the deck. She saw Stark,
• 2:29:41
  Speaker 1: and her lips parted. She did not look away from him.
• 2:29:45
  Speaker 1: His breath came out of him, choking. It almost cost
• 2:29:50
  Speaker 1: him his life his standing there looking at her. A
• 2:29:53
  Speaker 1: guard with flesh like blue snow shafted his bow from
• 2:29:57
  Speaker 1: the turret and let it loose. A chain lay on deck. Thankfully,
• 2:30:02
  Speaker 1: Stark took it. Clev came over the rail beside Stork
• 2:30:07
  Speaker 1: his chest took the arrow. The shaft burst half through
• 2:30:11
  Speaker 1: and stopped. Held. Clev kept going after the man who
• 2:30:15
  Speaker 1: had shot it. He caught up with him. Baio dog
• 2:30:18
  Speaker 1: cried out behind you, Conan, Conan. In her excitement, she
• 2:30:24
  Speaker 1: gave the old name. End of Part five, Part six
• 2:30:34
  Speaker 1: of Loralaiah The Red Mist by Lee Douglas Brackett and
• 2:30:37
  Speaker 1: Ray Bradbury. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 2:30:43
  Speaker 1: Part six Conan. He was whirling. He confronted a wiry
• 2:30:50
  Speaker 1: little fellow, chained him brutally across the face, seized the
• 2:30:54
  Speaker 1: man's falling sword, used it on him. Then he walked
• 2:30:58
  Speaker 1: in got the man's jaw unbalanced him over into the sea.
• 2:31:03
  Speaker 1: The ship was awake. Now Most of the men had
• 2:31:06
  Speaker 1: been down below, resting from the battles. Now they came
• 2:31:10
  Speaker 1: pouring up in a silver spate. Their yelling was in
• 2:31:14
  Speaker 1: strange contrast to the calm silence of Calm de Hue's men.
• 2:31:18
  Speaker 1: Stark found himself busy. Konan had been a healthy animal
• 2:31:24
  Speaker 1: with great recuperative powers. Now his muscles responded to every
• 2:31:28
  Speaker 1: trick asked for them. Stark leaped cleanly across the deck,
• 2:31:33
  Speaker 1: watching for Ron, but she was nowhere to be seen.
• 2:31:37
  Speaker 1: He engaged two blades, dispatched one of them. More ropes
• 2:31:41
  Speaker 1: raveled high and snaked him. Every ship in the harbor
• 2:31:45
  Speaker 1: was exploding with violence. More men swarmed over the rail
• 2:31:50
  Speaker 1: behind Stork. Silently above the shouting, Bao dog's voice came
• 2:31:55
  Speaker 1: at the sight of the fighting men. Clev munt a SyRI.
• 2:32:01
  Speaker 1: Stark was a god. Anything he wanted, he could have
• 2:32:05
  Speaker 1: a man's head he could have it. It meant acting
• 2:32:08
  Speaker 1: the guillotine with knife and wrist and lunged body like this.
• 2:32:14
  Speaker 1: His eyes were smoking ember and there were deep lines
• 2:32:18
  Speaker 1: of grim pleasure tugging at his lips. An enemy cannot
• 2:32:22
  Speaker 1: fight without hands. One man facing Stark suddenly displayed violent
• 2:32:27
  Speaker 1: stumps before his face, not believing them. Are you watching, foulon?
• 2:32:33
  Speaker 1: Cried Stark inside himself, delivering blows. Look here, foul On, God, No,
• 2:32:39
  Speaker 1: you're blind. Listen, then hear the ring of steel on steel.
• 2:32:44
  Speaker 1: Does the smell of hot blood and hot bodies reach you? Oh?
• 2:32:49
  Speaker 1: If you could see this tonight, Foulon Falgo would be forgotten.
• 2:32:53
  Speaker 1: This is conan out of idiocy, with a guy named
• 2:32:57
  Speaker 1: Stark wearing him and telling him where to go. It
• 2:33:01
  Speaker 1: was not safe on deck. Stark hadn't particularly noticed before,
• 2:33:06
  Speaker 1: but the warriors of Crome de Hue didn't care whom
• 2:33:09
  Speaker 1: they attacked. Now they were beginning to do surgery to
• 2:33:13
  Speaker 1: one another. They excised one another's shoulders, severed limbs in blind,
• 2:33:18
  Speaker 1: instantaneous obedience. This was no place for Bo Dog and himself.
• 2:33:25
  Speaker 1: He cut her free of the masthead, drew her quickly
• 2:33:27
  Speaker 1: to the rail. BeO Dog was laughing. She could do
• 2:33:32
  Speaker 1: nothing but laugh. Her eyes were shocked. She saw dead
• 2:33:37
  Speaker 1: men alive again, lashing out with weapons. She had been
• 2:33:41
  Speaker 1: starved and made to stand night and day, and now
• 2:33:44
  Speaker 1: she could only laugh. Stark shook her. She did not
• 2:33:49
  Speaker 1: stop laughing. Bo dog, you're all right, You're free. She
• 2:33:55
  Speaker 1: stared at nothing. I'll I'll be all right. In a minute.
• 2:34:00
  Speaker 1: He had to ward off a blow from one of
• 2:34:02
  Speaker 1: his own men. He parried the thrust, then got in
• 2:34:06
  Speaker 1: and pushed the man off the deck, over into the sea.
• 2:34:09
  Speaker 1: That was the only thing to do. You couldn't kill them.
• 2:34:12
  Speaker 1: BeO Dog stared down at the tumbling body. Where's Ron?
• 2:34:17
  Speaker 1: Stark's yellow eyes narrow searching she was here? Bodog trembled.
• 2:34:23
  Speaker 1: Ron looked out of her eyes, out of the tired
• 2:34:27
  Speaker 1: numbness of Bodog, an echo of Ron. Ron was near by,
• 2:34:31
  Speaker 1: and this was her doing. Instinctively, Stark raised his eyes.
• 2:34:38
  Speaker 1: Ron appeared at the masthead like a flory of snow.
• 2:34:42
  Speaker 1: Her green tipped breasts were rising and falling with emotion.
• 2:34:46
  Speaker 1: Pure hatred lay in her eyes. Stark lipped his lips
• 2:34:51
  Speaker 1: and readied his sword. Ron snapped a glance at Bodog
• 2:34:57
  Speaker 1: stooping as in a dream. Beodog picked up dagger and
• 2:35:00
  Speaker 1: held it to her own breast. Stark froze. Ron nodded
• 2:35:06
  Speaker 1: with satisfaction. Well, Stark, how will it be? Will you
• 2:35:12
  Speaker 1: come at me and have Beao Dog die? Oh? Will
• 2:35:16
  Speaker 1: you let me go free? Stark's palms felt sweaty and greasy.
• 2:35:22
  Speaker 1: There's no place for you to go, Fag is taken.
• 2:35:26
  Speaker 1: I can't guarantee your freedom. If you want to go
• 2:35:29
  Speaker 1: over the side into the sea, that's your chance. You
• 2:35:32
  Speaker 1: might make sure in your own men. Swimming with the
• 2:35:36
  Speaker 1: sea beasts waiting, she accented the beasts heavily. She was
• 2:35:42
  Speaker 1: one of the sea people. They Lenai and his men
• 2:35:46
  Speaker 1: were sea beasts. No, Hugh Stark, I'll take a skiff.
• 2:35:52
  Speaker 1: Put BeO Dog at the rail, or I can watch
• 2:35:55
  Speaker 1: her all the way, guarantee my passage to sure in
• 2:35:58
  Speaker 1: my own men there, and BeO Dog lives. Stork waved
• 2:36:05
  Speaker 1: his sword get going. He didn't want to let her go.
• 2:36:10
  Speaker 1: He had other plans, good plans for her. He shouted
• 2:36:15
  Speaker 1: the deal down at Lenai. Berni nodded back with much reluctance.
• 2:36:21
  Speaker 1: Ron in a small silver skiff headed toward land. She
• 2:36:25
  Speaker 1: handled the boat and looked back at Beyo Dog all
• 2:36:28
  Speaker 1: the while. She passed through the sea beasts and touched
• 2:36:32
  Speaker 1: the shore. She lifted her hand and brought it smashing
• 2:36:37
  Speaker 1: down whirling. Stark swung his fist against Baodog's jaw. Her
• 2:36:43
  Speaker 1: hand was already striking the blade into her breast. Her
• 2:36:46
  Speaker 1: head flopped back, His fist carried through. She fell, The
• 2:36:51
  Speaker 1: blade clattered. He kicked it overboard. Then he lifted Beao Dog.
• 2:36:57
  Speaker 1: She was warm and good to hold. The blade had
• 2:37:00
  Speaker 1: only pricked her breast. A small rivulet of blood ran
• 2:37:07
  Speaker 1: on the shore. Ron vanished upward on the rocks, hurrying
• 2:37:10
  Speaker 1: to find her men in the harbor. The harp music paused,
• 2:37:16
  Speaker 1: The ships were taken, their crews lay filling the decks.
• 2:37:21
  Speaker 1: Crom To Hugh's men stopped fighting as quickly as they started.
• 2:37:26
  Speaker 1: Some of the bright shining had dulled from the bronze
• 2:37:29
  Speaker 1: of their arms and bare torsos. The ships began to sink.
• 2:37:35
  Speaker 1: Lonnai swam below, looking up at Stark. Stark looked back
• 2:37:39
  Speaker 1: at him and nodded at the beach swell. Now let's
• 2:37:44
  Speaker 1: go get that she devil, he said. Faoulon waited on
• 2:37:49
  Speaker 1: his great stone balcony, overlooking crom To Hugh. Behind him,
• 2:37:53
  Speaker 1: the fires blazed high, and their eating sound of flame
• 2:37:57
  Speaker 1: on wood filled the pillared gloom with sound, a furious light.
• 2:38:02
  Speaker 1: Foulon leaned against the rim, his chest swathed in bandage
• 2:38:07
  Speaker 1: and healing ointment, his blind eyes flickering, looking down again
• 2:38:12
  Speaker 1: and again with a fixed intensity, his head tilted to listen.
• 2:38:17
  Speaker 1: Romna stood beside him, filled and refilled the cup that
• 2:38:21
  Speaker 1: Faulon emptied into his thirsty mouth, and told him what happened,
• 2:38:26
  Speaker 1: told of the men pouring out of the sea and
• 2:38:29
  Speaker 1: ron appearing on the rocky shore. Sometimes Foulon leaned to
• 2:38:34
  Speaker 1: one side, weakly toward Romna's words. Sometimes he twisted to
• 2:38:39
  Speaker 1: hear the thing itself, the thing that happened down beyond
• 2:38:43
  Speaker 1: the gate of besieged Foga. Romna's harp lay untouched. He
• 2:38:49
  Speaker 1: didn't play it, he didn't need to. From below, a
• 2:38:52
  Speaker 1: great echoing of harps, more liquid than his, like a waterfall,
• 2:38:57
  Speaker 1: drenched the city, making the fog saw down red tears.
• 2:39:02
  Speaker 1: Are those harps? Cried Foulan, Yes, harps, what was that?
• 2:39:09
  Speaker 1: Faoulan listened, breathing harshly clutching for support. A skirmish, said Romna,
• 2:39:15
  Speaker 1: who won? We won, And that Foulan's blind eyes tried
• 2:39:22
  Speaker 1: to see until they watered the enemy falling back from
• 2:39:25
  Speaker 1: the gate, and that sound, and that sound. Foulon went
• 2:39:31
  Speaker 1: on feverishly, turning this way and that, the lines of
• 2:39:35
  Speaker 1: his face agonized and attentive to every eddy and current
• 2:39:38
  Speaker 1: and change of tide. The rhythm of swords through fog
• 2:39:42
  Speaker 1: and body was a complicated music whose themes he must recognize.
• 2:39:48
  Speaker 1: Another fell, I heard him cry, and another of Ron's men. Yes,
• 2:39:52
  Speaker 1: said Romna. But why do our warriors fight so quietly?
• 2:39:57
  Speaker 1: I've heard nothing from their lips? So quiet? Ramna scowled, quiet, yes, quiet?
• 2:40:07
  Speaker 1: And where did they come from? All our men are
• 2:40:10
  Speaker 1: in the city, aye. Ramna shifted, He hesitated, squinting, he
• 2:40:16
  Speaker 1: rubbed his bulldog jaw. Except those that died at Volga.
• 2:40:24
  Speaker 1: Foul On stood there a moment. Then he wrapped his
• 2:40:27
  Speaker 1: empty cup. More wine, board, more wine. He turned to
• 2:40:34
  Speaker 1: the battle again. Oh gods, if I could see it,
• 2:40:38
  Speaker 1: if I could only see it below, A ringing crash,
• 2:40:42
  Speaker 1: a silence, a shouting, a pouring of noise the gate.
• 2:40:48
  Speaker 1: Foulon was stricken with fear. We've lost my sword. Stay
• 2:40:54
  Speaker 1: foul On. Roma laughed, then he sighed. It was a
• 2:40:58
  Speaker 1: sigh they did not believe, in the name of ten
• 2:41:02
  Speaker 1: thousand mighty gods. Would that I were blind now or
• 2:41:06
  Speaker 1: could see better. Foulan's hand caught, held him. What is it?
• 2:41:13
  Speaker 1: Tell Klev and Tilan and Conan and Bluke and Mont
• 2:41:21
  Speaker 1: standing at the gate like wine visions, swords in their hands.
• 2:41:27
  Speaker 1: Foulan's hand relaxed, then tightened. Speak their names again, and
• 2:41:33
  Speaker 1: speak them slowly, and tell the truth. His skin shivered
• 2:41:38
  Speaker 1: like that of a nervous animal. You said, clev Mont,
• 2:41:43
  Speaker 1: Bluk and Tilan and Conan back from Falga. They've opened
• 2:41:51
  Speaker 1: the gate and the battles won. It's over. Foulan crom
• 2:41:55
  Speaker 1: de Hue will sleep tonight, Paolon let him go. A
• 2:42:02
  Speaker 1: sob broke from his lips.
• 2:42:04
  Speaker 2: I will get drunk, drunker than ever in my life,
• 2:42:08
  Speaker 2: gloriously drunk. God, But if I could have seen it,
• 2:42:14
  Speaker 2: been in it, Tell me again of it, Romna.
• 2:42:19
  Speaker 1: Faulan sat in the Great Hall on his carved high seat,
• 2:42:23
  Speaker 1: waiting the pad of sandals on stone. Outside the jangle
• 2:42:28
  Speaker 1: of chains, a door flung wide, red fog sluiced in
• 2:42:35
  Speaker 1: and in the sluice people walking. Foulan started up. Clev
• 2:42:40
  Speaker 1: mont a Sir Stark came forward into the firelight. He
• 2:42:47
  Speaker 1: pressed his right hand to the open mouth of the
• 2:42:49
  Speaker 1: wound on his thigh. No, Foulan, myself and two others,
• 2:42:57
  Speaker 1: bail Dog, Yes and Bao Dog came wearily to him.
• 2:43:03
  Speaker 1: Foul On stared, who's the other it walks light? It's
• 2:43:07
  Speaker 1: a woman. Stark nodded. Ron. Foul On rose carefully from
• 2:43:15
  Speaker 1: his seat. He thought the name over. He took a
• 2:43:19
  Speaker 1: short sword from a place beside the high seat. He
• 2:43:22
  Speaker 1: stepped down. He walked towards Stark. You brought Ron alive
• 2:43:28
  Speaker 1: to me. Stark pulled the chain that bound Ron. She
• 2:43:34
  Speaker 1: ran forward in little steps, her white face down, her
• 2:43:37
  Speaker 1: eyes slitted with animal fury. Foul On's blind said Stark,
• 2:43:43
  Speaker 1: I let you live for one damn good reason. Ron, okay,
• 2:43:48
  Speaker 1: go ahead. Foulan stopped walking. Curious, he waited. Ron did nothing.
• 2:43:57
  Speaker 1: Stark took her hand and wrenched it behind her back.
• 2:44:00
  Speaker 1: I said go ahead. Maybe you didn't hear me, I will.
• 2:44:07
  Speaker 1: She gasped in pain. Stark released her. Tell me what happens,
• 2:44:12
  Speaker 1: foul On, Ron gazed steadily at foul On's tall figure
• 2:44:18
  Speaker 1: there in the light. Foulan suddenly threw his hands to
• 2:44:22
  Speaker 1: his eyes and choked. BeO Doc cried out, seized his arm.
• 2:44:27
  Speaker 1: I can see foul On staggered as if jilted. I
• 2:44:32
  Speaker 1: can see first he shouted it, then he whispered it.
• 2:44:37
  Speaker 1: I can see Stark's eyes blurred. He whispered to Ron, tightly,
• 2:44:45
  Speaker 1: make him see it, Ron, or you die. Now make
• 2:44:50
  Speaker 1: him see it. To foul On, what do you see?
• 2:44:56
  Speaker 1: Foul On was bewildered. He swayed. He put his hands
• 2:45:00
  Speaker 1: to shape the vision. I see cromed Hugh. It's a
• 2:45:05
  Speaker 1: good sight. I see the ships of Ron sinking. He laughed,
• 2:45:11
  Speaker 1: a broken laugh. I see the fight beyond the gate.
• 2:45:17
  Speaker 1: Silence swam in the room over their heads. Faulon's voice
• 2:45:22
  Speaker 1: went alone and hypnotized into that silence. He put out
• 2:45:27
  Speaker 1: his big fists, shook them, opened them. I see Mont
• 2:45:31
  Speaker 1: and Acer and Cleve fighting as they always fought. I
• 2:45:35
  Speaker 1: see Conan as he was. I see bay Dog wielding
• 2:45:40
  Speaker 1: steel again on the shore. I see the enemy killed.
• 2:45:44
  Speaker 1: I see men pouring out of the sea with brown
• 2:45:47
  Speaker 1: skins and dark hair men. I knew a long darkness
• 2:45:51
  Speaker 1: ago men that rode the sea with me. I see
• 2:45:56
  Speaker 1: Ron captured. He began to sob with it, his lungs
• 2:46:01
  Speaker 1: filling and releasing it, sucking in on it, blowing it out.
• 2:46:05
  Speaker 1: Tears ran down from his vacant, blazing eyes. I see
• 2:46:10
  Speaker 1: crom to heue as it was and is and shall
• 2:46:13
  Speaker 1: be ah. I see, I see, I see Stark felt
• 2:46:19
  Speaker 1: the chill on the back of his neck. I see
• 2:46:22
  Speaker 1: Ron captured and held, and her men dead around her
• 2:46:26
  Speaker 1: on the land before the gate. I see the gate
• 2:46:29
  Speaker 1: thrown open. Foulan halted. He looked at Stark, Where are
• 2:46:34
  Speaker 1: clev and Mott were his book? And Asir Stark let
• 2:46:39
  Speaker 1: the fires burn on the hearth. A long moment, then
• 2:46:43
  Speaker 1: he replied, they went back into the sea, Foulan. Foulan's
• 2:46:49
  Speaker 1: fingers fell emptily, Yes, he said, heavily. They had to
• 2:46:56
  Speaker 1: go back, didn't they. They couldn't stay, could they, not
• 2:47:00
  Speaker 1: even for one night of food on the table and
• 2:47:02
  Speaker 1: wine in the mouth, and women in the deep warm
• 2:47:05
  Speaker 1: furs before the hearth, Not even for one toast. He
• 2:47:10
  Speaker 1: turned a drink, Romna, a drink for every one. Romna
• 2:47:17
  Speaker 1: gave him a full cup he dropped it, fell down
• 2:47:20
  Speaker 1: to his knees, clawed at his breasts. My heart rhyme,
• 2:47:25
  Speaker 1: you sea devil. Stork held her instantly by the throat.
• 2:47:30
  Speaker 1: He put pressure on the small, raging pulses on either
• 2:47:33
  Speaker 1: side of her snow white neck. Let him go ron
• 2:47:38
  Speaker 1: more pressure, let him go. Foul On grunted. Stark held
• 2:47:44
  Speaker 1: her until her white face was dirty and strange with death.
• 2:47:49
  Speaker 1: It seemed like an hour later. When he released her,
• 2:47:52
  Speaker 1: she fell softly and did not move. She wouldn't move again.
• 2:47:59
  Speaker 1: Starked turned slowly to look at foul On. You saw,
• 2:48:04
  Speaker 1: didn't you? Foul On? He said, Baolon nodded blindly weakly.
• 2:48:09
  Speaker 1: He roused himself from the floor, groping. I saw for
• 2:48:15
  Speaker 1: a moment, I saw everything and God's but it made
• 2:48:19
  Speaker 1: good seeing here. Hugh Stark called Knan, give the other
• 2:48:24
  Speaker 1: side of me something to lean on. Beyodog and Stark
• 2:48:30
  Speaker 1: climbed the mountain above Volga. The next day, Stark went
• 2:48:35
  Speaker 1: ahead a little way, and with his coming the flame
• 2:48:37
  Speaker 1: birds scattered, glittering away. He dug this shallow grave and
• 2:48:42
  Speaker 1: did what had to be done with the body he
• 2:48:44
  Speaker 1: found there. And then, when the grave was covered with
• 2:48:47
  Speaker 1: thick gray stones. He went back for Bayo Dog. They
• 2:48:51
  Speaker 1: stood together over it. He had never expected to stand
• 2:48:56
  Speaker 1: over a part of himself, but here he was, and
• 2:49:00
  Speaker 1: BeO Dog's hand gripped his. He looked suddenly a million
• 2:49:05
  Speaker 1: years old. Standing there, he thought of Earth and the
• 2:49:08
  Speaker 1: Belt and Jupiter, of the Joy Streets and the Jakara
• 2:49:12
  Speaker 1: Lo Canals of Mars. He thought of space and the
• 2:49:16
  Speaker 1: ships going through it, and himself inside them. He thought
• 2:49:21
  Speaker 1: of the million credits he had taken in that last job.
• 2:49:24
  Speaker 1: He laughed ironically. Tomorrow, I'll have the sea creature's hunt
• 2:49:31
  Speaker 1: for a little bettle box full of credits. He nodded
• 2:49:35
  Speaker 1: solemnly at the grave. He wanted that, or at least
• 2:49:39
  Speaker 1: he thought he killed himself getting it. So if the
• 2:49:44
  Speaker 1: sea people find it, I'll send it up here to
• 2:49:46
  Speaker 1: the mountain and bury it down under the rocks. In
• 2:49:49
  Speaker 1: his fingers, I guess that's the best place. BeO Dog
• 2:49:54
  Speaker 1: drew him away. They walked down the mountain toward Valga's harbor,
• 2:49:59
  Speaker 1: where a ship waited them. Walking, Stark lifted his face.
• 2:50:05
  Speaker 1: BeO Dog was with him, and the sails of the
• 2:50:07
  Speaker 1: ship were rising to take the wind and the red
• 2:50:10
  Speaker 1: sea waited for them to travel it. What lay on
• 2:50:14
  Speaker 1: its fore side was something for Beyo Dog and foul
• 2:50:17
  Speaker 1: On of the ships and Romna, and Hugh Stark called
• 2:50:20
  Speaker 1: Knan to discover. He felt damned good about it. He
• 2:50:26
  Speaker 1: walked on steadily, holding BeO Dog near and on the mountain.
• 2:50:32
  Speaker 1: As the ship sailed, the flame birds soared down, fitfully
• 2:50:36
  Speaker 1: and frustratedly to beat at the stone mound ceased, and
• 2:50:41
  Speaker 1: morning Shrilly flew away. End of Part six, end of
• 2:50:48
  Speaker 1: Lorali of the Red Mist by Lee Brackett and Ray Bradbury.
• 2:50:54
  Speaker 1: This story told by Phil Schinnebeer in April of twenty
• 2:50:58
  Speaker 1: twenty one. Hope you enjoyed it.